Catch 22
by Lotos-Eater
Summary: [ShikaTema] Temari has a problem: she wants to marry this guy, but he happens to belong to another hidden village. Shikamaru has a problem: he wants his girlfriend in his bed, but she keeps insisting that she lives somewhere else. How to fix this?
1. Chapter 1

o

**o**

**Catch-22**

**o**

1

**o**

"She's still going to be loyal to the Sand, no matter which way you look at it," Ino said, voicing the unequivocal truth.

"The Sand and the Leaf are allies," Shikamaru said.

"You oughtta know how little that means," Ino countered. "Did that stop them from allying with Sound and attacking us? Has a treaty ever really worked? The villages are allies in name only. Come on, Shikamaru, you're supposed to be the genius."

He knew she was right. He'd been over this argument dozens of times with dozens of different people, and he knew perfectly well by now that there was no way around it. He kept hoping someone would surprise him and tell him something he hadn't thought of yet. He supposed he must be smarter than everyone else after all.

Chouji grunted sympathetically before swallowing another mouthful of meat.

The three were sitting in their favorite barbecue restaurant. They'd just come back from a tough mission, and they hadn't spoken about anything that wasn't work-related for about three weeks. It was a relief to be sitting here with them and talking about the most important topic of the moment, which, instead of combat tactics or mission plans, was currently his love life.

"Even if she is loyal to Suna…" he started… but he never completed the thought. That was the problem. There was nowhere for that thought to go.

Chouji chuckled darkly, as if reading his mind.

"Maybe if she just totally ditched the Sand, like, formally," Ino said, "and defected to Konoha, you know? I could see people buying that."

_Defected_. The word rang in his ears like a bad tune. In his mind it was in the same category as _unfaithful_. That was not a word he associated with Temari – she who would do anything to fulfill a mission or carry out an order. And she would kill herself for either of her brothers. That much he was certain of. She wasn't going to throw away her loyalty to them, period.

"I don't think that's something she would consider," Shikamaru said carefully, stretching out in his seat, feeling the weariness start to sink into his limbs. He didn't know why he bothered talking about this with people. No one had an epiphany for him.

Ino shrugged. "Well, you never know. I'm always surprised she goes through as much trouble as she does just for your lazy butt. And she puts up with all your complaining," Ino pointed out. "Not that you don't have anything to complain about. That woman's a harpy."

Chouji and Shikamaru exchanged a glance.

"Don't think I didn't see that," Ino grumbled.

Chouji started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" he said.

"Loud, pushy, loyal to a different country. I can't think of any woman you've ever met who would be more _troublesome _than this one," Chouji said pointedly.

Shikamaru glowered, his lips a straight line. Ino started to crack up. "He has a point," she said.

o

By the time he reached the door of his apartment, he was exhausted. Three weeks, barely any sleep. He hadn't felt it when they were at the restaurant, because at that point he'd been so hungry he'd eaten almost as much as Chouji, but now it was hitting him.

The door closed behind him. He sighed deeply, ambled over to the bathroom, dropped his clothes to the floor and stood under the hot shower for all of sixty seconds. Afterwards he was too lazy to even get dressed. He slung a towel around his waist and lurched over to his bed, where he planned to collapse and be dead to the world for the next twelve hours or so.

He didn't usually make his bed – complete waste of energy, if you asked him – but he was astute enough to see that the blankets were crumpled in a not entirely natural manner. The room was lit only by the moonlight from the window, but it was just bright enough for him to see that he wasn't alone.

She seemed to be asleep, although he couldn't make out her face very well in the dark, so it was hard to tell. She was lying on her side, her back to the window. He slunk into bed next to her, hoping he wouldn't wake her up. But either she hadn't been asleep or he wasn't careful enough – as soon as he was lying on his back, she rolled toward him, her hand snuck up onto his chest and her mouth captured his ear. "Hi," she whispered.

"Hi."

He sighed with disappointment. Not that it wasn't nice to have someone chewing on your ear, but he didn't really have the energy for this right now.

He heard her chuckle after his audible sigh. She climbed on top of him, hovered over him on all fours, and started kissing his chest, slowly moving her mouth down from his clavicle.

"Look, I hate to let you down, but…"

"Shut up," she said.

"It's not that…"

"Quit your whining." Her mouth had reached the bottom of his rib cage. "No one said you'd have to do any work." Her mouth continued lower and lower.

He exhaled slowly as realization hit him, and he leaned his head back on the pillow with relief. There may or may not have been an extremely stupid grin on his face. Chouji had a point, but she wasn't all trouble.

o

He woke up the next morning to the sound of thunder. Outside the window it was pouring rain, gray, dim. Not a morning for moving around. That was okay by him. They made love for about an hour and then dozed off again, tangled in each other and the sheets. He had no idea what time it was. The paltry light outside gave no clue. It could be daybreak or it could be nearing dinnertime. He didn't care. He wasn't going to move from this bed. He was going to lie here for as long as humanly possible, listen to the rain, play with her yellow hair, maybe have sex again, and then go back to sleep.

She, apparently, had other plans. She crawled over him at a slovenly pace and practically dripped off the bed. He grumbled a protest, too lazy to form words. "Sorry," she said, leaning down to kiss him briefly.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"To take a shower."

He made a sound of frustration in his throat as he watched her walk away. That meant no more sex.

He tried to listen to the sounds she made in the bathroom, but the rain was too loud. He closed his eyes and tried to remember everything he'd talked about with Chouji and Ino last night. When she appeared again, he saw to his great distaste that she was fully dressed. "Already?" he said. "You just got here."

"Wrong. _You _just got here. I've been waiting around for two days. I had a mission in the Wave Country and I was supposed to be on my way home. I'm already late."

"They can spare you another day," he argued. "It's not like they don't know where you are."

"I know that. Why do you think he sent me? It was a lousy C-rank mission, it just happened to be somewhere that required crossing Fire Country. He could have sent anyone. He was doing me a favor. I'm not going to pay him back by disappearing on him. He'll never send me out here again."

He reached out for her arm, pulling her toward the bed. "I never figured you to be the type to let her little brother boss her around."

"You have to admit, he's not an ordinary little brother," she said.

He pulled her down on top of him, aligning her on his chest. "You don't want to travel today. Look at it out there."

"I don't have a choice," she said. She leaned in and inhaled, closing her eyes. "God you smell good."

He was silent for a minute. "I don't like it," he said, staring up at her cool sea-green eyes. "All this coming and going. It's too much work. It's troublesome."

"You could come back with me," she offered.

He was silent.

"Yeah, didn't think so," she said, sliding off of him, sitting up on the edge of the bed, facing away from his still supine form. The room seemed too hushed for a minute, filled only with the soft light from the window and the constant pattering of rain. She turned, leaned down to kiss him, lingered there for a while in her usual goodbye, and then started to stand up.

Before she could get away, he grabbed her wrist. "Temari."

"What?"

"Marry me."

The sound of raindrops filled the space again. All he saw that mattered were her two wide eyes staring down at him. "And he doesn't even sit up," she said, bemused. "You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet."

"Please," he said.

After a moment of consideration with a completely blank face, she tore her eyes away from him and stood up quickly. "What are we going to do, start our own country?"

"We'll figure it out."

"It's hard enough for ninja to marry each other when they're living in the same village."

"It might not be easy, but wouldn't it be worth it?"

"What put this into your head? Do you even know what you're asking me?"

He didn't answer her. He watched her back as she crossed the room to the door. She pulled it open. Paused. She still didn't turn to look at him, but she said, "I need to think about it for a while."

He felt an uncomfortable emptiness in his chest when he heard the front door close.

o


	2. Chapter 2

o

o

2

o

She leapt through the trees, grumpily ignoring the rain. What was he thinking? Not that she hadn't considered it before. They had been doing this for almost two years. It was starting to sink in with her that it wasn't just a fling. She loved him. Oh god she loved him. It wasn't just the sex, either, although that was a nice part of the deal. She loved him because he loved her, for some reason. Or maybe he loved her because she loved him.

Her footing was off; if she wasn't careful, she was going to slip and fall.

Either way, whoever loved whichever one first, it wasn't a fling. They loved each other, but it was a truth that wasn't easily explained. For her part, she supposed it was the way she felt around him, or rather, the way she didn't have to feel around him. Everything in her life that was difficult seemed to evaporate when he was around.

She hadn't had the happiest childhood – not that she'd ever struggled to survive (unless you count growing up with Gaara as a struggle to survive), but it seemed like everything was a contest. As a kid, she had always competed with Kankurou for their father's attentions – or rather, she competed with every other Sand ninja to appear competent in his eyes. It didn't matter that she was the Kazekage's daughter; if she couldn't cut it as a ninja, the former Kazekage wouldn't have spared a thought on her. She didn't have a mother, and with everyone mortally terrified of her father and her brother, she was desperate for some kind of recognition. All that seemed to win her any favor with the former Kazekage were her abilities as a ninja, so she'd never been interested in much else.

The desert was a place of harsh simplicity: stark environmental patterns and ironclad traditions made a cut-and-dry way of life. There wasn't room for misgivings, gray areas, or indecision – especially not while she was growing up, with the village its dire situation, which had grown even more difficult with the presence of Gaara and his developing psychotic tendencies. So no, she hadn't starved to death, hadn't lacked anything material. She wasn't beaten any more or less than any other ninja student. If there was anything missing – a little bit of simple affection, say – she hadn't known that it was missing, hence hadn't missed it.

When she had first come to Konoha with Baki and her brothers for the Chuunin exam, she had thought that this place was the same as her village. Aesthetically it was different, but every ninja village was alike. It was only slowly that she began to realize the differences in the people. Uzumaki Naruto was the most obvious and immediate, as with everything, but it didn't end with him. In Suna, the village had been going downhill for so many years that when she was a girl, pride had overshadowed every other priority and consideration. If they couldn't keep their pride as ninja, they would have nothing left. So when she began to realize that these people of Konoha actually considered other things more important, it was a revelation.

And him. His whole outlook was a slap in the face. She'd never met anyone who cared less about pride. He was a complete and utter hedonist. Whatever pleased him and required the least exertion – that was what he was going to do. His only redeeming qualities were his inherent genius and his loyalty to his friends. But for some reason she still loved him.

She kept leaping on the branches, determined not to be distracted.

**o**

She couldn't forget the first time he'd kissed her. She'd never been so shocked. It was true that since saving his life years before, they'd almost become friends. She liked him because he was easier to be around than most people in Konoha. The rest tended to be suspicious of her, which always left her on edge. She didn't know if he really trusted her any more than the others, but he wasn't going to waste energy worrying over her presence, so she knew she could relax around him. She trusted him to be too lazy to care that she was from Suna.

She'd been sitting up on the bench on that roof that he'd shown her, polishing her fan and avoiding the apprehensive looks of the people on the street below. He'd shown up, ambled over to his usual spot, and stretched out on his back to watch clouds. They didn't even greet each other beyond a quick glance. She never felt the need to talk with him or fill up the air with conversation. He was a comfortable person just to be around.

She didn't bother to look at him once he was on his back, because she knew he'd be watching the clouds. They sat together for a long time without saying anything. He surprised her when he asked what she was doing.

"Polishing," she said gruffly. "What does it look like?"

She'd sounded meaner than she'd meant to, as usual. In spite of that, he went on, "But why bother with that? It's just a weapon, right? It's not even like you have to sharpen it."

"This fan's been in my family for four generations," she said coolly. "You think I'm going to let it rust?"

She was almost too stunned for words when he sat up and angled his body toward her. Curiosity was not natural for him. He took the fan into his own lap while she stowed her polishing cloth in a pocket. He ran his hands over it gently.

"It's beautiful," he said, not really sounding like he meant it, but even so she was touched.

"It's a weapon," she said. "It's only beautiful because it's powerful."

"It's heavy," he noted after another minute of consideration.

She scoffed. "You think?"

"I mean it's heavier than I expected. How long have you been using this?"

"Since I was eleven or so," she said. "I don't need it, you know. I can fight without it." She would never go anywhere without it, but she rather disliked being overshadowed by her weapon.

"I know you can," he said after a moment.

The tone of his voice made her head jerk. It seemed to come out of nowhere. She knew immediately that something was out of place. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked him warily.

He didn't say a word. Instead he leaned toward her in a gesture that was so natural it caught her off guard, and he put his warm lips on her warm lips before she had the chance to back away. His touch froze time.

He'd kissed her like an afterthought, almost – no drum roll, no fireworks, just a simple kiss that communicated everything he needed to say. Not a hot kiss, just an easy, laid-back gesture; not a stolen kiss at night, but a soft kiss for the morning. Beyond the lip of shade, the morning sun was bright and warm on her legs, and the rest of her body soaked it up. The air was mild, barely stirring. She could hear birds in the trees and kids playing on the street below.

An eternity passed while he kissed her, even though it was really only a few seconds before she broke away in shock.

Without meeting his eyes, she stood up, picked up her fan, and walked away as quickly as possible. She was sure her face was glaringly red. In fact her entire body felt flushed. She had turned her back on him and fled the scene, and once again, like after ever confrontation with him, she was left wondering how she had been so easily defeated.

**o**

Not that she had never been kissed before. There had been boys that had thought she was pretty and boys that had gone after her because she was the Kazekage's daughter, and then because she was the Kazekage's sister, and because they were inevitably Sand ninja she hadn't been able to scare them all away. Kankurou had been useful for that purpose. Gaara never seemed to notice. But by the time Shikamaru kissed her, she was twenty-three, and she had made the firm decision that she would never be anything but a ninja. She told herself she wasn't cut out for motherhood and was too rough to be anyone's lover. Most times, the fact that she was a woman was just an annoyance.

**o**

The first time they saw each other after that morning, her cheeks burned like a little girl's. She felt ridiculous. She was a ninja!

She didn't mean to be coy. She was trying to be straight with him. She knew right off the bat that it would be impossible, so she tried to avoid it as long as she could, and she appreciated the fact that he didn't press her. They stayed friends after that kiss and never said a word about it, up until the day that she broke and pinned him to a wall and forgot who she was, who he was, who anyone was.

**o**

The first time they made love, her hair became more tangled than it had ever been in her life. She saw herself in the mirror afterwards and hardly recognized her face.

He had laughed at her. "I like it like this," he had said.

**o**

The first time he went to Suna to see her, he had to stare down Gaara, who had at last noticed. And staring down Gaara was just as difficult as it sounded. But Shikamaru hadn't shied away. She'd been so amazed by this she was practically speechless. Just the idea that he would go through so much psychological trouble for her and nothing but her – needless to say, she jumped him as soon as she had him alone.

**o**

He had even introduced her to his parents. Which made her think, now, that he might have been planning this all along. Once again, he was several moves ahead of her, and she was completely blindsided by his attack.

**o**

She reported to the Kazekage as soon as she reached Suna. He didn't say a word about the fact that he knew she should have arrived sooner. She chose to ignore this as well. That was how their family worked, for the most part: never say what you really mean. Honesty is vulnerability. Never show emotion, never show affection, never touch.

That had all started to change when their father died, but old habits die hard.

Yet still, there was progress. She was just about to leave his office when he asked, "How's the weather in Konoha?"

She paused in the doorway without turning around. "Absolutely miserable." And then she left.

Kankurou, when he saw her in the hallway, without saying a word about weather or Konoha or elongated missions to Wave Country, waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, communicating the same thing much more crudely. She punched him in the shoulder as he passed, hard enough to make him wince – well, as a big sister, she had to show him his place. And this was as close as they ever got to touching, so in a way it was a sign of affection.

Days passed. She performed her duties for the Sand, manning routine lookout posts, tutoring some of the younger ninja-in-training, but she had a hard time paying attention to anything in front of her. She doubted Shikamaru had really understood what he had asked her. No, she didn't have a normal family, but now that it was only the three of them, it was different… in a good way. Even if they never said anything really kind to one another, never hugged or touched, never cried in each other's presence, they were closer than ever now. Was she going to wreck that, after all the time it had taken to get over their childhoods? All for this boy?

Late one night, tired of tossing around alone in bed, she went out to the roof of the Kazekage's compound. It only rained in the desert once or twice a year. There was no moisture in the air at all – once you crossed the border between countries, it was an entirely different climate from Konoha. Not even a cloud in the sky. The sky was an infinite black bowl above her, pocked with stars. Shikamaru hadn't learned this yet, but she liked to watch the sky as much as he did. She just liked a different kind of sky.

So tiny, and so many of them. That was the thing about Konoha. It was so crowded with people, buildings, trees – you never really got to see the sky like this, in its perfect clear dry beauty, rim to flat horizontal rim. Right now there was a sliver of moon above her, and all her favorite constellations were nesting in the darkness.

Yes. It was beautiful.

However.

She shivered. It wasn't like her to spend so much time thinking about herself. Kazekage's daughters didn't get led around by their hearts. She should be cold to him, loyal to her country. That was her duty and her fate.

However.

She sighed. Why even try to argue? The game was already over, and he had won as usual. The sky was certainly very beautiful over Suna tonight. She would miss it when she left.

**o**


	3. Chapter 3

o

**o**

3

**o**

Shikamaru lay in his bed uneasily, listening to the rain. It wasn't as much fun doing this by yourself. If he was going to lie around being lazy, he much preferred to have her there beside him, keeping him warm.

He'd never been a complicated person. He'd never had a lot of needs. Girls were nice when they were there, but it was less trouble when they weren't. She was different, though. Somehow she'd crept in. Once he had a game in front of him, he couldn't put it down until he'd won. She was like that. Only he didn't care if he ever won or not.

The thing was… she was still work. She had to be the loudest, scariest woman he had ever met. But she was also beautiful. And as mean and unpleasant as she could be, he had an addiction to disarming her. He knew how she treated other men, trying her best to scare them away. She had done that to him as well before they were friends. There was something about knowing that even if she was at full tilt in a rage, all he had to do was touch her in the right place – the small of her back, say – or kiss her eyelids, and she would smile at him like she smiled at no one else. He was never the possessive type of guy – he was much too laid back for that – but it had to be admitted that there was a certain charm in knowing that he could get past her defenses like no one else could. He saw through her and knew she wasn't as tough as she tried to be, but at the same time she was one of the stronger ninja he had ever met, and he could undo her with a touch, and he loved the whole idea of it all. With him, it was all about strategy rather than force. Once he figured out how the game was played, he found it to be habit-forming.

He'd probably fallen for her the first time she smiled at him. He tried to tell himself it wasn't a big deal. Everyone made love into this big production, but he wasn't going to start wars over it. He just liked, a lot, the way she looked. He liked the way the curve of her waist looked under her obi. He had always liked to wonder how much underwear she wore to keep those breasts in place. He liked how her arms were all sinew – probably thanks to years of lugging around that fan. He liked the curve of her neck and the absurd style of her unruly hair and how it made the vicious killer look like a little girl. He loved that, actually. And he loved the rarity of her genuine smiles, because there was nothing false about her smiles, ever. When she smiled at you – not smirked, but smiled – you knew it was real.

When she blushed… it felt, to him, like getting drunk. He loved that with a flick of the wrist, or a glance, or a few well-chosen words, her face would explode with color and her eyes would flit to the side to see if anyone else had overheard or seen what passed between them.

And he liked – all right, loved – how surprisingly natural everything had become with her. She was a challenge, but one whose demands he knew he could meet. Like a game, like shougi, that he always knew he would win.

And it didn't hurt that she was beautiful.

That was why he'd kissed her. He hadn't thought about it much beforehand, he had just acted on instinct. He went to stare at clouds one morning and she had been there, polishing her fan. He leaned back on his bench to watch the clouds, but instead he found himself watching her back, the creamy curve of her neck, the puffballs of blonde hair, and the thin sheen of sweat on the side of her cheek. He was fascinated. He rather liked staring at her. Her body had nice lines that he could appreciate, and when she turned her head just a little, he could see her profile backlit by the morning sunlight. Her presence made the clouds marginally less attractive by comparison, but the overall view was vastly improved.

He asked her some dumb question just to get her to move her mouth, but she didn't even turn toward him to answer. He sat up and scooted closer to her, careful to mask his intentions by pretending to admire the fan. "It's beautiful," he said, not referring to the fan.

"It's a weapon," she said. "It's only beautiful because it's powerful."

It's beautiful on its own too, he thought, still not referring to the fan.

He tried small talk for a few seconds, but became distracted by her pink lips. Maybe the sun had gone to his head. He was usually pretty dreamy but not normally this bad. He liked to stare at things like clouds and rivers and let his mind swim in them. He didn't realize that she had begun to fulfill this purpose as well.

Without really thinking about it, he had leaned in and kissed her, because somehow he knew that was the thing to do, and for a very brief moment everything was perfect.

**o**

It had scared her away.

For a while, he thought he'd never see her again, at least not in private, and he kicked himself for ruining everything. Then he had a different idea: _wait. Wait for her to make a move, one way or the other. She isn't playing hard to get, she's just making up her mind. _And it turned out he was right.

The next Chuunin exams were in Konoha, and she was there with her team of Genin. He was only there as a spectator, since he had grudgingly helped Ino with some of her Genin after being pestered to the point of insanity and was idly curious to see how far they'd progressed. When he saw Temari in the stands, they greeted each other as friends, talked like friends, never acted like anything had happened to change that. He realized with a sigh that this was how it had to be, and she was probably right to let it go – it would be a lot of trouble otherwise. And for all he knew she didn't feel anywhere near the same way he did. She didn't seem like she was going to bow to any man in her life. He was surprised by how much reality suddenly bothered him.

The matches hadn't even started yet. They were standing near each other at the back of the stands, watching the Konoha Chuunin down below run through the drill of explaining the rules to the candidates on the field. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that she kept glancing at him. It made him uneasy. Was she afraid he'd go after her again? Well, she shouldn't waste the energy, he thought with a hint of bitterness. Her presence made him anxious. He turned and walked away.

He had ambled off through a hallway of the stadium, not far from where he and Naruto had once seen Gaara murder two men in cold blood. He wasn't sure what he was looking for – he had stopped smoking years ago, but sometimes he still felt the urge to go off by himself and get a glimpse of the clouds while no one was looking. This time, though, he mostly just needed to be away from her. She made him uneasy like no one else could. He used to look forward to that, but now he saw those lips and thought of how they felt and it just made things… troublesome.

He sensed almost immediately that he was being followed. He turned around and saw her – looking almost shy, blushing like crazy, and he opened his mouth to say something but before he had the chance to get a word out she had grabbed him by the arms and pushed him so hard against the wall that his head bounced, and a split second later she was already busy kissing him to the point of asphyxiation.

After that they decided not to have any more lover-like unspoken misunderstandings, because it was just a waste of time.

**o**

Shikamaru sighed, rolled out of bed, blearily heading toward the bathroom. If he wanted to be absolutely honest with himself, it was more trouble when she was away. He was all for immediate gratification with the least amount of work possible, and their current circumstances didn't allow for much of that. He was sure that was not the most romantic way to think of it, but he'd never been much in favor of romance. Romance was just a distraction. He wanted something more real than that. More real, less work. More Temari.

o

Temari was anxious. It had been several days since she'd made her decision, more than two weeks since she'd left Konoha, and it was time for action. "Have you seen the Kazekage?" she asked one of the guards, when the rest of her duties to Suna were done and several ninja students had the bruises to prove it. The guard pointed her out to the terrace. Gaara was sitting there with Kankurou, discussing who knew what. The sun was getting low, but there were still a lot of people on the street below. She knew Gaara liked to sit out here when he had the time. She thought he liked the way he could see so many people and feel like he was watching over them.

She gritted her teeth when she saw Kankurou. She would rather have talked to Gaara in private. Somehow, she was more afraid to tell Kankurou than Gaara, because she knew how Kankurou would react. With Gaara there was at least a chance he wouldn't hate her for the rest of his life.

…Maybe she would wait until she saw Shikamaru again before telling them. Just to be sure.

"Gaara, send me to Konoha," she said curtly as soon as they noticed her.

Kankurou gave her mean dancing eyes. "Now who's insubordinate?" he asked with a sneer. She was always giving him digs about treating Gaara more like a brother than the Kazekage.

Gaara eyed her blankly.

"Don't make me beg," she said, annoyed and trying to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"What's this all about?" Gaara asked.

Kankurou snorted. "Obviously she's horny."

Temari promptly smacked him on the back of the head hard enough to make him hiss with pain. "Could you stand to be less of a louse?" she asked angrily.

"You've been there a lot lately," Gaara said. Temari looked at him – his expression was predictably blank. He didn't like Shikamaru. Neither did Kankurou, for that matter. But at least Gaara hadn't threatened the man with death… recently. Openly. That she knew of. At any rate, he had been doing her favors as far as giving her an excuse to visit Konoha as often as possible, which meant that apparently he had some feeling for their predicament. Still, she had no idea of what to expect when she told him. But that could wait.

"I enjoy the shade," Temari said, her tone deadly as she stared at a snickering Kankurou with slit eyes. "It's good for my complexion."

**o**

She made record time traveling to Konoha. The guards let her past the checkpoint quickly because they knew her on sight by now, knew she was an ally. After two and a half days of travel, she made short work of the streets to his apartment.

Then she stood just outside the front door for a few minutes. After rushing to get there, she was now hesitant. She wondered if he might have changed his mind.

For the first time she asked herself whether he had really been serious. Her heart faltered. He had been so casual, too – hadn't even phrased it as a question, actually. More like a suggestion. _Marry me. _She bit her lip. If he wasn't serious about this, then she was making a complete fool of herself. Just the thought of it made her furious. She wasn't a weak ninja, not after a childhood like hers – how was it that he beat her every time? Even when he seemed barely to be trying? And even though she was the only one that cared that it was a competition?

How badly did she want this? Badly enough to embarrass herself completely?

_(Yes.)_

At any rate, she couldn't turn back now. Backing down was an action that she was genetically predisposed against.

He opened the door before she knocked – maybe he had sensed her chakra, or maybe he had just been leaving. Either way, if he was surprised to see her, it didn't register on his face. His eyes were flat, as usual, but there was a slight indent on his forehead, and this was the only indication that her presence was not expected.

"Do you still want to marry me?" she asked him quickly, before her courage faltered.

**o**

Two hours later, she pushed him off of her and rolled to the far side of the bed for safety. "I take that as a _yes_," she said, her voice unsteady. It was the first time one of them had spoken since she'd asked that question. Well, it was the first time either of them had said anything intelligible.

"Is that why you're here?"

"No, I have an unslakable lust for Chouji. Of _course _that's why I'm here, you idiot."

He crawled onto her again. She started to bat him off, but thought better of it when his mouth reconnected with her neck. She rather liked it there. "You're not worried about…?" he started to say as he kissed her.

"I haven't thought too much about it yet," she said, cutting him off.

"Good," he said.

"So, you have any brilliant ideas?"

"No."

"So you're just going to keep doing this until you can think of something, huh?"

"That's the plan."

She tried to think of a pithy remark to bring him back to the issue at hand, but this was not really possible while his mouth was where it was.

"Aren't you tired?" she asked finally.

"No."

"Don't you have places to go, people to see?"

"They won't miss me."

"Wait a minute, who...? They had just better not come looking for you."

When he moved across to one breast, she stopped thinking. He knew her body so well by now that it was pointless to try to think while he was at work.

Still, part of her remained sane. With both of her arms and an excessive amount of willpower, if not force, she pushed him off of her again. He looked vaguely annoyed. "Are _you _tired?" he asked.

"No… hold on. Shut up. Stop for a minute!" she cried, sitting up. "We have to talk about this seriously. This isn't a game. This isn't kid stuff anymore. I'm… my brother's the Kazekage."

"Boy, nothing gets by you…"

"Would you listen to me? I'm asking a serious question here. How are we going to get around this? Even if I'm living here, even if the Hokage _lets _me live here, I'm still a ninja of Suna. Someone out there is going to have a problem with that."

"Temari," he said at last.

"What?"

"I just want to wake up with you."

And make love to you every morning with a minimum of effort. He didn't say it out loud, but she knew him well enough to hear the unsaid words.

She didn't mind the fact that it was a minimum of effort: one, because she knew him and knew that laziness brought him the height of pleasure; two, because, when you came right down to it, that was what marriage was. Love every night and morning without any extraneous complications. She grinned. That would be nice, actually.

She gave in. "Fine then. You're the genius," she said. "You find a way."

o


	4. Chapter 4

o

o

4

**o**

Shikamaru stumbled out of his apartment the next morning. He would have to teach an Academy class later that day and he was not looking forward to a room full of pre-Genin kids who all knew from experience that he was far too lazy to punish them. He didn't really have anything to do at the moment, so he was going to find someone to talk to. He made his way up to his favorite cloud-watching spot within the city limits of Konoha. The old familiar bench. It was a dependable place, a simple place, free of any complications and always there for him when he needed to get away.

Temari was still asleep in his bed back at his apartment. Apparently she'd skipped a lot of sleep to make it to Konoha faster, but after traveling like that he knew her chakra reserves must be low – that and they hadn't exactly had a restful evening.

After they were too tired to make love anymore, they'd taken a shower, and then she'd tried to cook for him. After burning the first round, she'd come up with something actually quite edible. He was always amused when she tried to cook. He was the instant-food kind of guy, but he appreciated that she made the effort. Then they had argued for a while, but as usual for them that just devolved into sex and after that they fell asleep.

"You'd leave Suna for Konoha?" he'd asked with surprise when he realized her intention.

"In a heartbeat," she had said without hesitation. "But there's always the question of loyalty. I couldn't swear loyalty to Konoha. I have to be loyal to my brother. It's not a question of duty. It's something I just _am._ If you got right down to it, if he gave me no other choice, I would have to leave you for him. I wouldn't like it, but I would do it."

He was silent while he considered this. She looked a little nervous.

"But I trust him never to put me in that position. And I believe he wants to stay allied with Konoha as long as he's Kazekage. Naruto and this place are something important to him, maybe even more important than Suna. I trust my brother. And I trust that he loves me as much as I love him, believe it or not."

He was still silent.

"We're a messed-up family, I admit, but we've finally got it so that it works. I could never break ties with them by blatantly swearing loyalty to Konoha. At the same time," she said, walking out of the kitchen and over to where he sat waiting for her to finish burning the food, her lips descending to his neck and she said, "I'd do just about anything for you."

"Except defect to Konoha," he said coldly.

"What do you expect of me? Do you want me to just turn my back on my brothers for you?"

Once he thought about it, the truth was that he wouldn't like her as much if that were something she was capable of.

"I love you," she said, "and I love this village. And I'd work for this village – I've done it before. But I couldn't do it at the expense of Suna. If I can't marry you and still save face as a ninja of the Sand, I can't marry you."

He turned to her, suddenly making up his mind. The answer was obvious, once he stopped to think about it.

"I'll defect to Suna," he said. "I'll swear loyalty to your brother."

"What?" she cried, stunned, dropping a pan.

"I'm sick of this. It's such a drag. I want to be with you without the politics. If that's what it takes, I'll go to the Sand."

Her mouth dropped open, but she was speechless. "But, your clan!" she said after a minute. "The Nara clan!"

"They'll pick another heir. We've got relatives by the score."

"But Konoha!" she practically shouted. What she didn't say, what she meant, was, _your friends and family are here! You love Konoha and everything it stands for! This place is part of who you are! _Of course he could say the same thing about her and Suna. But it was different, somehow. She could picture herself living in Konoha. She could not picture him staying forever in Suna. "You love Konoha," she managed to say.

"Yes," he said, in that amazingly laid-back and bored-sounding way he had of saying anything emotional, like if he put on an act she'd be fooled into thinking that he wasn't affected. "But I love you, too."

He walked over to her, pushed the wok out of her hand, and dipped in to kiss her again, demanding her attention. She couldn't refuse him. She never could. But something wasn't right, and she felt it deeply.

She tried to imagine a future for them in Suna. As many times as she had seen him there, she couldn't ever make him belongthere in her mind. Wouldn't he be miserable out there in the desert? The hot days and freezing nights of Suna were harsh – Konoha had always felt like a humid resort to her, and she was sure Suna had always been a hell to him.

Could he be serious?

He was serious. He was being extremely affectionate. Shikamaru was not this energetic with his affection unless he was in earnest. "I would do anything for you," he said, lips on her cheek just in front of her ear.

Coming from someone as devotedly lazy as him, it really meant something.

"Shikamaru," she said at last.

"Mmm?" He was busy torturing her clavicle now.

"Either way, we'd run into the same problem."

"Hmm?"

"Either I'd get kicked out of Konoha or you'd get kicked out of Suna."

He lifted his face off of her body for a moment. "Your brother wouldn't trust me?"

"He doesn't really trust anybody. But really it has nothing to do with my brother. It's politics. He has to answer to the council of Suna just like your Hokage has to answer to the council of Konoha. And anyway, you know the only thing that keeps him from killing you is me."

"I know," he said. "Of course, he wouldn't want to kill me if it weren't for you."

"That's not the point," she said as his mouth dipped down to her neck again. "The point," – she tried not to squeal as his tongue danced over the skin at the nape of her neck – "the _point _is that you belong to Konoha and I belong to Suna, and it's going to stay that way, regardless of who marries who."

He backed off for a moment, considering both the skin of her neck and the point she had just made. "So no matter who swears loyalty to who," he said, "we're both still suspect."

"Exactly."

"Mmm."

"There's no easy way out."

"Mmm."

"There may not even be a difficult way out."

"Mmmmmm."

"Would you stop kissing me for a second?" she cried, unable to hold back the following grunts.

"No," he said with certainty, his mouth delving in between her breasts.

"Cut it out!" she cried, abandoning dinner (which was burning anyway) and not really trying to stop him. She sighed. _Okay. I give up._

He smiled to himself. He knew they'd argue a lot when they were married, but that was okay: as long as their arguments continued to end like this, that was fine by him.

**o**

He sat on the bench at his favorite escape point, sighed, and opened the bag of chips. It was time to summon a friend that he would not want to have sex with. The thing with Temari was that she got him so easily distracted.

A few minutes passed. He waited for the sound of footsteps and smiled to himself when he heard them. It was good to have predictable friends.

With a heaving breath so familiar that Shikamaru didn't even bother to turn his head, Chouji appeared, snatched the remaining chip from him, and settled down comfortably on the bench at his side. They didn't say anything for a while. "You're not even going to ask me where I was yesterday?" Shikamaru said.

"Nah. Ino spotted Temari when she got here. We kind of figured."

He could feel Chouji's eyes on his hands. His hands were clasped in front of him in their usual square now that Chouji had relieved them of the bag of chips. He could almost see Chouji's forehead folding into lines of concern. "What's going on?"

"I'm getting married."

After a moment of silence and sixty seconds of solid laughter – and laughter was no small thing coming from a guy the size of Chouji – Shikamaru felt like he could finally look his friend in the eye again. "Naruto owes me ramen for a month," Chouji said.

"Shut up. We don't even know how it's going to work. It could be a disaster."

"Well, disaster or not, it'll be fun to watch," Chouji said. "Congratulations, I guess."

"Eh, don't get ahead of yourself. It's going to be a lot of bother working this out so she can stay here without trouble and her brothers won't kill me. And to make it so no one here will think she's a spy. And no one in Suna will think she's a traitor."

In a few terse minutes, he opened up to his friend in a way that he rarely did. He really just needed to hear everything out loud. And Chouji should know anyway, he supposed.

She had made it clear that she had decided on her own that she was moving to Konoha. She had just made it his job to figure out how that was going to work.

She could defect. Ninja had done it before. Generally they still wouldn't be considered very trustworthy, but if the Hokage accepted her into the village – and why wouldn't she? – then no one could argue with the Hokage. (At least until Tsunade was replaced by the Sixth Hokage, and Shikamaru didn't even want to think about that possibility yet.)

Or if she didn't want to defect, if her brother and the Hokage both signed off on her visa, she could stay indefinitely as she always had before. There were just a few issues with that: technically, her visa could be revoked at any time by either Kage, and if that happened Konoha ninja would automatically be under orders to expel her, and if they didn't comply – if, for instance, Shikamaru didn't arrest her right away – then the Konoha ninja would be considered to be refusing orders, and they could be arrested too. Not that Shikamaru ever saw this happening with the current leadership of their villages… but it was in his nature to consider every eventuality. The harsh truth was that neither the Hokage nor the Kazekage were immortal, and there was always a chance that there would be less friendly people in power. Also, the village council could overrule the Hokage and revoke her visa, if they saw it as a threat that a Suna ninja was living among them, which was definitely not out of the question… or if the Suna council decided they wanted her back…

So it would probably be better if she defected.

Of course, there were her brothers. They wouldn't take too kindly to the idea of shifting alliances, even if they knew she was in love with him. It didn't make much of a difference to Shikamaru, since he knew they already wanted him dead, but he didn't want to make her turn her back on her brothers. No – he knewshe wouldn't turn her back on them. Swearing loyalty to Konoha meant formally breaking ties with them and all of Suna, which meant that if she was ordered to, she would have to fight against them. That was out of the question. And Temari wasn't going to lie. He knew her too well to expect her to fake a loyalty, and he knew that she wouldn't be accepted as a Konoha ninja unless Anbu and the Hokage were convinced of her allegiance, which would be a lie that would be difficult to achieve even if she was willing to lie.

If the Godaime allowed her to live here without breaking ties to Suna, that was fine. But any other Hokage could just as easily turn against them.

If the Godaime could make her a permanent citizen of Konoha… but that would mean turning her back on Suna.

Was there no way to get her accepted into Konoha without making her break with Suna?

If they were a normal village rather than a hidden village of ninja, she would marry him and the argument would be over. But she was a warrior, and not one to be underestimated, and this was a ninja village. The Hidden Leaf was always starving for more ninja, but that never meant that they would accept an outsider offering their services by any stretch of the imagination. Someone who didn't know her well, ninja or civilian, would make noise – and, frankly, most people in Konoha still viewed her and the other Sand-nin with open distrust. Trouble was inevitable. And all it took was one person to point out that it was illegal for her to be there… and then it all went back to the Hokage. Everything went back to the Kages, eventually. It started with a look of distrust on the street and ended with the Kages in their towers. They might walk around freely together while she was here, but only by the grace of the Kages.

If the Hokage gave a special order that she was to be allowed to stay indefinitely without swearing loyalty… but then once again you ran into the issue of this only working if the Hokage was in office for the rest of their lives.

Shikamaru had made the offer with the intention of it being permanent. He'd had a life plan since he was little. He couldn't remember exactly when she'd started to fit into that, but now he couldn't picture anyone else in that role. He wanted _her_, then a daughter, a son, an easy job, and an indefinite stretch of his retirement spent behind a shougi board.

There were other ways around it – he could insist on defecting to Suna, for instance. It would be a huge bother and it wouldn't be any fun knowing he could be ordered to kill his parents or his friends… but he would never do that. He wouldn't ever really be loyal to Suna any more than she'd be loyal to Konoha. And even if the Kazekage was forgiving, which was not likely, there were still plenty of other people in Suna who could make their lives miserable.

Maybe, he thought, we really should start our own village. She can be Kage. And we shouldn't have any trouble populating it ourselves.

**o**

Chouji summed it up by saying, "So you just have to find a way that's legal, so I guess no matter what people think, at least they can't argue about it. You're never going to force people to trust her, but maybe there's a way to get her permanent, you know, _citizenship _without breaking any laws. Jeez, you'd think if she just married you that'd be enough. That's what they do in civvie villages."

"It's always different in the hidden villages," Shikamaru said.

"Does it really matter? She's here all the time anyway."

"It would be different if she actually lived here. People still don't like her. Someone would get in the way. There are still plenty of people who believe that the villages should remain separate and distinct, no matter how many treaties. And, you know, the whole attack… the death of the Third Hokage… I don't think even most of the ninja want to see Suna shinobi on the street."

o

Temari rolled around in his bed for as long as she possibly could, letting the idea of marriage marinate. She tried to reason her way around it.

_This is what you do with love. You go after it, no matter what the cost, if it's that important to you._

She didn't really have an explanation that worked. But she knew what she wanted. She wanted _him. _If that meant giving up Suna…

Life was hard, sometimes. But that had never stopped her before.

**o**

Later that day, he took her out to Ichiraku Ramen, and he watched as she slurped her noodles down, always fascinated by the way she ate like a man, without the slightest care for how she looked doing it. She had a taste for Ramen – one that didn't hold a candle to Naruto's passion, of course, and fell short of even Chouji's, but she still never wasted an opportunity to take advantage of Ichiraku Ramen when she was in town, since nothing like it was available in Suna. Watching her, he felt himself inwardly shrug with a hint of pride. It was hard to say why. She was uncouth, obnoxious, scary, and she had him totally whipped, but she also belonged to him. And was willing to leave her village for him.

But Chouji was right. She was trouble.

He ruminated for a minute, considering the options. Everything had a structure of rules and traditions around it, regardless of what they felt for each other, and their villages had the distance of three days between them. As easily as his mind could work around a frame of logic, he felt that there must be a way out of this situation. She was right. He would be the one to find a way. And if he didn't, he resolved, he would turn his back on everyone and go to Suna. No matter what it cost him.

He had parents, but he had no siblings. She had siblings, but she had no parents. Either way, one of them lost.

"What are you thinking of?" she asked him, licking some broth off her cheek.

"I'll tell you later," he said.

"No fair," she grumbled.

"But you'll have to live with it. I'm going to figure this out if it kills me."

o

They didn't usually say goodbye like this, where people could see. He couldn't help but follow her to the gates, though. And he didn't care anymore if people saw. Let them see. Let them eat it up. They might as well get used to it.

He didn't want to let her leave this time. She reached up to the pockets of his Chuunin vest and pulled him close to her. They didn't kiss at first, just stayed in that embrace, breathing the same air. "You _did _really mean it, didn't you?" she asked him.

"What?"

"You said it in bed. I've learned from experience that the promises you make in bed don't really mean much out of bed."

"Quit being such a pain. I want to marry you, okay?" he said, rolling his eyes.

"Why do you have to be such a jerk about everything?"

"Why do you always have to argue with me?"

"I'm not arguing, I'm just being practical," she said. "Look, if you really don't think this will work…"

"It'll work," he said. "Just let me think about it for a while."

"You should have figured it out before you said anything."

"Are you going to complain about this for the rest of our lives?"

She scoffed, then smiled. "Just make it work, okay? Even if you have to bribe the Hokage."

He paused in mock consideration. "That might work… she has a lot of debts… do you have much money?"

She punched him lightly, then kissed him on the cheek. "See you."

**o**

He watched her go.

Everyone save the few that had been assisted by the sand siblings during the Sasuke-retrieval venture was highly suspicious of the Sand, and with good reason. Just because their Kazekage was betrayed and killed didn't mean all past grievances were forgotten. Maybe on paper they were back to ally status, but anyone old enough to remember the Sound-Sand invasion – and that meant almost every ninja – was going to treat the Sand ninja with skepticism. Was definitely not going to welcome them into their midst.

Temari was something of an exception, in that most Konoha ninja knew her on sight. That didn't mean they trusted her. She may have been a liaison between the two villages, but she was also widely known to be the sister of the Kazekage. No one questioned the fact that her loyalties were, and always would be, to the Sand. Even Temari herself had told him that she would sacrifice anything for her brothers. Anything. He didn't question the validity of her priorities. It was right that family should come first.

He really wanted to fall into that category, but he just wasn't there yet.

There had to be another answer. After she left and he started walking home, he started to think about it seriously.

**o**

He took to the Hokage's library, with her permission, and went through every volume of old laws that he could get his hands on. The Hokage had allowed this because she wasn't blind, and she had an idea of what it all meant.

He didn't want to leave Konoha.

He wanted to believe his ties to his village were just as valid as her ties to her own, but that wasn't right. He had his clan and their jutsu, but she was a Kazekage's daughter and sister. That was hard to beat. He may not have multiple blood relations as Kages past and present, but he was loyal to the core. The whole idea of leaving Konoha and becoming loyal to Suna… it just wasn't possible for him. His family and friends were all here. He had no connection to that place but her, and maybe her brothers, if he was in a good mood.

He didn't want to, but if that's what it came down to… he really believed that she was his future. He wanted her to be his future. However, he wanted her to be his future _in Konoha._

So how could he ask her to abandon Suna?

He didn't think the way she felt about her homeland was quite the way he felt about Konoha (she hated her father as much as Gaara did), but all the same, that was the place she belonged.

So at the end of all his reasoning, he was, once again, back where he started. He belonged to Konoha, she to Suna. All that was left was to find some kind of technicality to let them stay that way and live wherever they wanted…

**o**

The time had come. She couldn't put it off any longer. She had to tell her brothers.

Kankurou glowered predictably. Gaara said nothing. She didn't know what she had expected from him, but she knew there would be some kind of response. His silence chilled her.

"So that's my decision," she said. She waited for the other shoe to drop. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

She did notice Kankurou roll his eyes, though. "Do you have a problem?" she said at last, her volume just short of shouting.

"No. Of course not," Kankurou said, his voice heavily sardonic. "Why is it any concern of mine if you want to throw yourself away on some lazy, useless, beady-eyed little nobody Leaf-nin?"

_Here we go, _she thought. "Kankurou…"

"He has a point," Gaara said.

Both older siblings' heads swiveled to the Kazekage.

"You're the daughter and the sister of a Kazekage. And you're beautiful." This, without even blushing. "Technically speaking, you can have anyone you want. So why him?"

"What do you mean, _why him?_" she blurted out. "Has there ever been anyone else? He's the only one other than you two I've ever half-cared about. And I'm twenty-five. I'm not getting any younger." It was a weak argument, she knew – but she was already pulling at straws. Their silence before had really put her on edge.

"You want _him_," Kankurou said, voice rich with derision.

"Shut up! Yes, I want him. Is that so terrible? I can be a ninja and a woman at the same time, you know. I'm not turning my back on the Sand. I promise you never to turn my back on you. I wouldn't marry him if that was part of the deal."

Kankurou and Gaara exchanged a glance.

"He needs to prove himself to us," Gaara said finally.

"What, you mean he hasn't already? He's a Jounin, he's an elite nin, he's a genius, and he even belongs to an old clan. What more do you want? Don't you dare try and tell me he's not good enough. I could go marry an idiot, you know! Don't try me – I'll do it!" she threatened.

"He's a Leaf-nin," said Kankurou, as if this nullified all other arguments.

"So's Naruto!" she screamed. "Gaara, if it was Naruto, what would you say?"

Gaara said nothing. He sat silently, unmoving, his arms crossed.

"And how is he any different from Naruto? They're both loyal to the Hokage in the end!"

"Naruto is different from everyone. Like me."

"To hell with that! Shikamaru is the same, in his own way." Okay, so he wasn't going to kill himself to complete a mission. At least he was loyal to his friends. That was the important thing.

Kankurou grumbled, "Why him? I mean, seriously. He's like this random guy. He's not even that interesting."

"You mind your own business," she said in her best big-sister tone of voice. "I'll go after whoever I want to, without consideration for your opinion."

"Apparently," he said. "He doesn't even act like he likes you."

"He's different in private," she said. She knew he didn't act like a typical possessive asshole. She liked that about him.

"He just looks bored all the time. You want me to believe he's different? Fine, what's he like in private?"

She couldn't very well say _all over me, _so she held her tongue for a minute.

She leaned back on her fan. She hadn't realized when she had taken it out – it was just habit when she was fighting with her brothers – especially Gaara. "I like him," she said. _Love _was a word the siblings never said among each other. That was just a fact of the household. Instead, the meaning had to be implied. "And he likes me. I don't have the patience for anyone else."

"Anyone else would have married you and come here. The daimyo's son would have married you," Gaara said doubtfully.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" she shouted. "You think like Dad, do you? You think I'm this piece of meat to be auctioned off? Well listen here, you know bloody well I'm a Jounin, and I don't have to submitto any man, I don't care who he is or who his father is or who _you _are for that matter!"

If it had come to shouting at Gaara, she knew the situation was dire.

Gaara wasn't afraid of anything. It wasn't in his nature. But he respected his sister as much as he respected any ninja. And to be quite honest… when she raised her voice like this, he didn't especially want to argue with her. It was weird. He could kill her if he wanted to, he said in the back of his mind. But the thing was, he would never want to. Those days were past. And when she raised her voice… he'd rather just agree with her. Life was so much easier that way. And it was certainly true that he didn't hate Konoha.

"That idiot," Kankurou said with disgust. "That dirty sonofa…"

"You keep your mouth shut," she snapped at her little brother in a threatening tone. She thought she might be getting Gaara to soften, and she was not going to let Kankurou ruin it.

"I don't know what he told you…"

"He told me he'd abandon Konoha if that's what I wanted," she divulged. "He told me he'd leave his family and friends and swear loyalty to Gaara if that's what I wanted. And I believed him. Think what you want, but he was telling the truth. He may not be everything you want him to be, but I trust him."

"So why didn't you let him leave Konoha?"

"Because he didn't know what he was saying."

"And what about you? You belong here."

"I belong with him."

The pause in conversation extended to several minutes. Gaara sat unmoving, Kankurou paced. Temari stood her ground.

"Look," she said. "I'm not going to run away. I'm loyal to Suna. Period. But as long as you respect the alliance, you can't really have an argument…"

"Suna isn't Konoha," Kankurou said. "You've had your fun. It's time to come home."

"The alliance isn't a sham, but it's just an agreement," Gaara said. "If Suna and Konoha were at war again…"

"Then I would come home, no question about it," she said.

"And your children?"

"They would stay in Konoha," she said without flinching. _Children? Hmm, maybe we should have talked about that… _She really didn't think the issue would come up, actually, but she didn't have time to think about that right now.

"You would allow that?"

"I would accept that I have no choice," she said. "But I don't think the situation will arise."

"That's naive of you," Kankurou noted.

"I don't care. That's how it is. I would belong to Suna and live in Konoha."

"And how would you serve Suna from there?" Gaara asked.

"Bloody hell, I don't know," she said. "Isn't that your decision? You _are _Kazekage."

**o**

_There has to be a loophole._

He'd been in the Hokage's library for several days, his eyes were getting bloodshot, and the Hokage was starting to show the signs of obvious annoyance.

"Are you quite done yet?" she asked him late one evening.

He was so exhausted that he came right out and asked her, "Would you sign a visa? Could you sign it in such a way that it couldn't be revoked?"

"Even the powers of the Hokage are limited. You know that. But why are you so worried? You don't trust that the next Hokage will be as careless as I would?" Of course she knew exactly why he was there and what he was asking about. She had probably thought it through as well, he thought ruefully.

"It's not careless."

"But you are asking me to supersede the written law of Konoha. I can do that, of course, if I believe the safety of Konoha depends on it."

"What if it resulted from a treaty with Suna?" he asked.

She watched him carefully. "Treaties… are complicated affairs, difficult to manage, and not entirely reliable, as may be seen from historical records. Are you suggesting that I instigate one on your behalf?"

"No."

"Are you saying that you think her brother would do that for you?"

He didn't respond. "Would you consider it if he did?"

She smirked again. "I told you, even the powers of the Hokage are limited. I would still be beholden to the council of Konoha in such matters."

"You asked the Sand for help way back when we went after Sasuke the first time. You used your connections then. They came to help us, and when they acted, they gave as much effort as if it had been one of their own in danger."

"That was what the situation called for," she said coolly. "Konoha was in a difficult position then."

"But you put your trust in them."

"Such as it was."

He broke a gaze with her and went back to the book of old laws he was immersed in. Her brow knit with concern. She was slightly worried about losing him – lazy as he was, he had a mind worth keeping. "I have a mission for you tomorrow," she said.

"Understood," he said, not raising his eyes.

"It will require your utmost attention," she said.

"Yes. I understand," he repeated.

"I have this feeling that you have been distracted of late."

"My loyalties are with Konoha," he said.

She hadn't brought that up. She wondered why he had. "As you say. I've never doubted you."

"I will report first thing in the morning," he said.

**o**

There were a lot of laws. Book after book of laws, a good few dealing with conditions upon which a person could be admitted to the citizenry of Konoha. Shikamaru pored over them for several days, eliciting dark looks from Kotetsu, Shizune, and every other ninja that came near that tower and didn't know what was going on.

There were a couple different ways they could possibly make it work, but each one had its own set of drawbacks…

Finally, he found exactly what he was looking for. He didn't know it was what he was looking for until he saw it, but once he had read it through, the wheels started to turn and the hundreds of different conclusions and futures began to present themselves to his imagination.

Chouji had been right, he knew. They could never convince the population to trust her, but they could at least find a way to make it legal for her to live here. And he had stumbled across a way to make it legal.

It was an old law, one that no longer had any meaning. Its significance had long expired. It was from a different era.

Funny, how the old laws could be applied in such new and creatively unexpected ways.

**o**

She came back to Konoha a month later as a messenger from Suna (highly sensitive information was conveyed in person rather than by letter, and also it was a sign of respect), aware of every pair of eyes on her. In truth there were no more than usual… but she was much more aware of the ones that were there. _Yes, I'm from Suna, yes I'm here, get over it! _she screamed inside her head.

He'd sent her a note, which had been the cause of this mission. _Come back as soon as you can._ So either he had figured something out or he was especially horny. Either way, it was something for her to look forward to. She had pestered Gaara until he had made it so. Really, she was getting pretty bad about disrespecting her Kazekage.

As she walked the streets, it occurred to her that Kankurou had a point. She belonged to Suna, and these people would never trust her. She'd thought she'd gotten _used _to this. Now she realized she'd just had her eyes shut. Those glares had been there all along, and would be there… for the rest of her life, it looked like. Maybe. She hoped.

She steeled herself. Well, yes. Love was hard, life was tough. Sob sob, cry me a river. She loved Shikamaru. If this was what it took – she thought as she glanced around the street – then she could deal with it. She had dealt with this kind of atmosphere before – all her life, in a way. It wasn't easy being the Kazekage's daughter. Or Gaara's sister.

She could stand living here. She worried, though, that living in Suna might be too much trouble for _him_. She wanted to avoid that no matter what the cost.

She walked the streets, nodding occasionally at people she passed. There was Kiba, whose life her brother had saved, eyeing her hungrily. But that was to be expected. He had a reputation for humping anything and everything that moved. He smirked at her. She rolled her eyes – but shot him a glance. She wasn't serious about it – she would be loyal to Shikamaru to the point of embarrassment – but it didn't hurt to have friends.

There was Naruto and the pink-haired Haruno. She waved at them.

There was one of the Hyuuga. On her last joint mission, she'd ended up working with the little one, Hinata. She didn't think much of the girl's strength, but she had to admit that this particular bloodline limit was dead useful.

There was Shikamaru…

She was caught off guard. He walked toward her with a determined gait once he'd spotted her. He took her by the hand as soon as he was within reaching distance. "Let's talk," he said.

"I have to see the Hokage. Those are my orders."

"It can wait a minute."

"What's the big deal?"

"I found a loophole."

"What are you talking about?" she asked him as he pulled her out of the crowd and under the awning of a stall that wasn't being used at the moment. She was ecstatic to see him and tried not to let it show. She would have loved to plaster herself on his face, but they were in public at the moment. His eyes were darting around like he wanted to make sure no one was overhearing, and she suddenly felt very suspicious. "Shikamaru… what is it?"

"Well… it's kind of troublesome and all, but… want to have a baby?"

**o**


	5. Chapter 5

o

**o**

5

**o**

She stared at him, dumbfounded. This was not exactly what she had expected to hear. Scratch that – this was about the furthest thing she could imagine from what she expected to hear. If he'd asked her to ditch her mission and run off to the Wave Country with him to shack up on the beach, she would have been less shocked.

But probably just as angry.

She grunted in aggravation and held her forehead with one hand. "Shikamaru! You can't even get out of bed to ask me to marry you and then you go and say something like _that _right in the middle of the street like it's nothing! What the hell is wrong with you?!" She stayed her hand. It was itching to smack him on the back of the head.

"Ow! …Jeez…"

Oops, there it went.

She was already walking toward the Hokage's tower.

"You're just lucky I don't have time to give you a proper beating."

"What's the big deal?" he asked as he grudgingly sped up to keep pace with her.

"'_What's the big deal?'_ You have the nerve to ask me _that_?"

"Temari, what…"

"Don't talk to me right now!" she said, her voice tight. "I can't believe you just…!"

"What? What's wrong? _How_ is that so wrong?"

"Shikamaru!" she growled. She didn't know what was making her angrier – what he had just asked or the fact that it really _didn't _seem to be a big deal to him at all.

"It's a valid question. It's only reasonable to expect to talk about it at some point, right? What am I supposed to do, sit you down for dinner by candlelight and get on my knees? What a pain. I've never done this before either, you know."

He reached out to take her hand and was stunned when she quickly pulled out of his grasp without even turning to look at him.

"Why are you so mad?" he asked, perplexed.

She wasn't as mad as she was shocked. Most people had different outward reactions to anger and shock. Temari was not most people. Things she didn't understand got her agitated, and she was not above showing it in the current circumstances. She couldn't for the life of her comprehend why he felt the need to talk about this here. Now. Of all times and places, here and now! And the whole subject made her blood run cold as soon as he had mentioned it out loud. She was just starting to get a grip on the fact that she was leaving her country so that, essentially, she could lie in bed with him all day once in a while. That was bad enough. _This _she hadn't even considered yet.

She didn't want to consider it. It was, for her, a really loaded question.

A fact that he did not appear to get.

"Slow down."

"I have a mission. I have to see the Hokage," she said tersely.

"Seriously? Come on, it can't be that important…"

"Just… back off, all right?" she snarled at him. His feet stopped while hers kept moving toward the Hokage's tower. He looked thunderstruck. She had never so blatantly rejected him before.

He thought he knew what he was doing. She always reacted badly at first, but then she always came around. But he felt kind of sick watching her walk away like that.

**o**

Chouji and Ino were walking down the same street.

"Married?" Ino said, voice just barely squeaking.

"Yeah."

"Jeez, how's that gonna work? He's…" – she looked suddenly distressed – "he's not thinking of going over to Suna, is he?"

Chouji shrugged. Ino was dumbfounded – but she quickly recovered. "Then again," she said, "it's Shikamaru we're talking about here. Doubt he'd go through that much trouble for anyone."

Chouji shrugged again. "I don't know. They're… you know."

"Yeah," she agreed after a moment's thought. Those two were very You Know. There was no other term for it.

It bothered her. She was never a big fan of any of the Sand ninja. Gaara was flat-out nuts, Kankurou was a total freak (although, it had to be admitted, good in bed), and Temari was someone she just didn't understand. Plus it still grated on her when she had been so badly shown up by Temari on that one mission when they had been sent to rescue Gaara's student… which was incidentally when she had first noticed how very You Know the two of them were. Their interaction annoyed her; she had wanted to stop the whole battle and shout at them, "Just get a room already!"

She'd never had what you'd call Romantic Inclinations toward either of her teammates. They were Chouji and Shikamaru. She'd known them since they were little kids, what with their fathers being such good drinking buddies. It was _weird _to think of them that way. This wasn't to say that she didn't get offended when they didn't notice how hot she was. She knew she had the goods and she naturally expected recognition of this fact from every breathing male. She never got as angry as when she felt she was being ignored by the opposite sex.

And it had bugged her when she became aware of this thing with her teammate and the Sand-nin. One, because her brothers were a nightmare. Two, because, what, none of the Konoha girls were good enough for him? (She would have dearly loved to smack some sense into him. She could parade a whole score of kunoichi in front of him who would be perfect for him, if he'd only asked her opinion. Sakura would top the list, actually, and she was still conveniently single. But of course he'd never asked!) Three, the woman herself was no picnic, to say the least, so how was it that the laziest ninja ever to graduate from Konoha Academy was going out of his way for her? It bugged Ino that someone as manically logic-driven as Shikamaru would do something so unreasonable. Four, and this was the kicker, because he'd never seemed attracted to Ino, when between her and Temari she was clearly the more attractive one. (What was that girl _doing _with her hair, and _why _was she doing it?)

"What is he _thinking?_" Ino seethed lightly. "He never even _looked _at me, or anyone else for that matter, and now he's falling all over himself for some crazy fan-wielding Sand-nin?"

Chouji looked taken aback. "You wanted him to look at you?"

"I happen to think that a girl like me deserves to be looked at," she said. "I'm not saying I ever wanted… you know… with him, but hell, is he blind or something?"

Chouji gave her a crooked grin. "He must be, if you ask me," he said, his tone oddly earnest.

After an uncomfortable silence and an unexpected blush, Ino promptly decided it was time to change the subject.

(At least _one _of them was looking at her.)

They saw Temari before they saw Shikamaru. Temari was flushed and all in all looking like she wanted to kill something, which was not entirely unusual for her, but normally when she was in Konoha and with Shikamaru she was in a better mood. Shikamaru just looked annoyed, but was clearly trying to placate. They were bickering with each other about something – Ino couldn't hear their words – and clearly getting worked up about it. They didn't seem to notice anyone else on the street.

"Jeez man, get a room," Chouji mumbled.

Ino giggled.

**o**

She'd ignored him all the way down the street and huffed her way into the Hokage's tower, where she was left to wait, pacing the hallway.

She was done being shocked. She was now ready to be furious.

It was a sensitive subject. _How _could he not know that? She knew he wasn't an idiot, and after two years of… well, after two years, he damn well ought to know her a little better than that.

She clearly wasn't mother material. She could barely remember her ownmother. She recognized her face in pictures, and every once in a while in the morning when she was lying alone in bed and still hazy with sleep, she dreamt of soft hands and a smile. But by and large she'd been raised by ninja and raised to _be _a ninja, and she couldn't remember anyone ever acting like a parent toward her, especially not her actual father. And she knew the way that she grew up was not a good way for a kid to grow up, and furthermore it was not the way any kid of hers should grow up, let alone any kid of Shikamaru's. But she didn't know any other way to _be._

Plus, she never knew what to do with kids. If they could just act like little grown-ups she could deal with them, since that was how she was raised – no forgiveness, no exceptions, no one going easy on you just because you were young, you just _shut up _when you were supposed to and _sat still _when you were supposed to and godforbid you started fighting with your brother because there would be hell to pay if you sparred without your sensei there. (Baki at least had the sense to realize that any one of the three siblings would probably kill any other if given the chance, so he hadn't let them fight without his supervision. In a lot of ways he was more of a father to them than their actual father.)

As a result, she was a strong ninja, but one with a rather rough exterior. What if she told him that she didn't want kids and he – what if he really wanted kids? It certainly looked that way… So this wasn't going to work after all. Great. Let's call the whole thing off. Kankurou will be thrilled, anyway.

She couldn't be anyone's mother. Could she? _No. Yes. No. _More importantly, did she want to be? _No! Of course not! _Really, did she want to be? _Yes, no, maybe… I don't even know what I want!_

Of course she wanted kids. It was just the idea of what would happen once she _had _them that was terrifying.

She had decided a long time ago that any inclination she had toward children was strictly biological in nature, just like her inclination to make merry with exploding tags on the practice range during a certain time of the month. As merely a biological want it could, and should, be ignored. This wasn't to say she'd never been kind of curious… or dreamed about having a normal family. She was just too realistic to think that would work.

"Temari?"

She turned on her heels at the sound of his voice. "Why did you follow me in here?" she hissed. "Don't you have some cloud-watching to catch up on? Get lost! I'm mad at you!"

"Oh come on… you can't be serious."

"If I'm such a bother to you I don't know why you're still here."

"I'm still here because this is stupid. You're not going to sulk over this."

"Watch me."

"Temari-san?"

She turned. It was what's-his-name, Kotetsu, and he looked like he _really _didn't want to be interrupting whatever was going on. "You have a report from the Sand?"

She collected herself quickly. She shot Shikamaru a look that said _get out if you know what's good for you, _and then she went to do her job.

o

Of course he'd caught up with her as soon as she'd left the Hokage's tower, and they had pretty much picked up where they left off.

And then…

He sighed. This always happened. Not that he was complaining or anything. It _was _nice to have predictable friends.

She rolled over in a daze, nearly fell off the bed, cursed while climbing back up (using his leg as a handhold), flushed with embarrassment – or maybe more than embarrassment. He hoped more than embarrassment.

"Shikamaru."

"What."

"This is humiliating."

"How so?"

"What are people going to think," she said, rolling back towards him, "if we can't have an argument that doesn't end in sex?"

"Meh… who cares?" he said, stretching out. _Maybe all married couples are like this. _He thought of his parents and felt a sudden wave of nausea.

"It's the middle of the day! And I was on a mission!"

"You were done with your mission. And hey," he muttered, "no one put a kunai to your throat and marched you in here." Anyone who tried that, he reflected, would have died gorily ten steps before the threshold.

"Don't give me that look," she said, gazing at him darkly, but flushing more at the truth in his words. "I mean it. Stop laughing."

"I'm not laughing."

"Yes you are. You're doing that thing where you look at me like you're laughing. That smirk. I _know _that smirk."

He picked at a strand of her hair, twirling it around his finger.

"So are you even going to explain yourself?" she asked.

o

"There's a whole story. It goes like this:

"There was this Uchiha way back during the time of the First Hokage. He was not exactly a noble guy… safe to say, he got around, and safe sex was not his priority. In short he had a lot of kids who were not born in Konoha, which would be bad enough for a normal ninja, but really bad for an Uchiha. The head of the Uchihas didn't want to humiliate the clan by making it public, but on the other hand they couldn't have all those little sharingans popping up all over the Earth Country and so on. So the Uchiha figured since the sharingan was a Konoha bloodline limit the issue was therefore a liability for Konoha, so Konoha should take care of it. So he goes to the Hokage and the Hokage agrees, and soon enough there's this law that any woman who pops out the kid of a Konoha ninja has to come to Konoha, kid in tow. They didn't really have to make it mandatory. I mean, if you were some girl in a poor backwoods village in Wave Country and you had the chance to come to a hidden village and be set up for life, you'd go for it, too. So the sharingan was kept in Konoha. Problem solved."

She was totally silent.

"The law might be from another era, but no one ever revoked it," he explained.

She did not seem entirely fascinated with this aspect of village history.

"No one can argue with it, not even the council."

She still said nothing. He was starting to sweat.

"Well, okay, they can argue. But I don't think they could overrule it. And anyway, it's adding to the population, which still hasn't recovered since the Sound attack, so I don't think we'll hear too many arguments."

It took a very long time for her to respond. "You want to have a baby just to get me a passport?"

"Tch… when you put it like that… I just meant that, if we were going to have kids sooner or later, why not start now so we can get married without any issues? That's why I asked you," he said patiently, "if you wanted to have a baby."

"So," he said after she continued to not respond to him, "you don't want to have kids?"

She opened her mouth to tell him _no, _but her voice caught in her throat. Because that wasn't really the truth, was it? "I never said that," she answered him.

He looked perplexed. "So you don't want to have _my _kids?"

She actually laughed out loud. "I promise you that is not the problem."

"So you _do _want to have kids?"

"I… it's complicated."

"What, you don't like babies?"

"That's not it."

"It's something else then, isn't it?"

"How can you _not _see why this would bother me?"

"What's the big deal? Everyone has them, even people who shouldn't…"

"If your family was as fucked up as mine you'd probably think twice about it, too," she said coolly.

He didn't have a response for that. She was glad, anyway, to get it off her chest.

"Yes, I want kids," she said. She'd never made her mind up about this, actually, but as soon as the words passed her lips she knew it was true. She'd told herself time and time again that she'd never be a mother – it wasn't practical, she was too good a ninja, and with her family being what it was it seemed like a bad idea – but then again, she'd told herself before that she was never going to completely fall for some lame-ass guy like this who couldn't even get his lazy butt off the bed to ask her to marry him. Suffice to say, she'd lied to herself about a lot of things, because they just didn't seem very likely.

If she wasn't sitting in front of him, she wasn't too sure about it. And this definitely wasn't something you got yourself into without being either sure or stupid, and Temari was neither. The idea of having kids with Shikamaru, however, definitely had its appeal. She couldn't see herself with kids. But it was so easy to see him with them.

"I've always wanted kids," she continued. Her stomach was already fluttering just thinking about it. Whether it was nerves or something else, she didn't stop to consider. She opened her mouth a couple times to explain herself. Somehow she ended up telling him the truth. "I'm scared."

His eyebrows rose. "You?"

"Me. I just… I don't know how to be a mother. Look at my family. I don't even remember my mother, I hardly know anything about her except that she left Gaara fucked up on purpose, my father was trying to kill my little brother for as long as I can remember and he pretty much ignored Kankurou and me, we all hated each other when we were little, Kankurou and I fought all the time and both of us were convinced that Gaara would kill us when our backs were turned, and I don't have clue how a normal family is supposed to act in private." She sighed. "It's been different since my father died and since Gaara met Naruto, but I don't want to have another family like that. I don't want to be someone's terrible mother."

"You won't. You'll be a good mother," he said.

"Why? How?"

"Because you want to be. Because you're strong."

"I don't think that's enough."

"Do you trust me?"

"What? Of course."

"Then trust me when I say you'll be a good mother."

She rolled away from him and let her gaze wander around the room, hoping he wasn't going to notice the tears that were smarting in the corners of her eyes. She felt like shoving him away when he climbed over her shoulder and started kissing those corners. Obviously she couldn't hide anything from him. "You know," he said, "you wouldn't be in this alone."

She breathed through her nose as she rolled back over to him. "I always forget that."

She hadn't realized what she really wanted, but having it right in front of you – yawning, scratching his belly, probably thinking about going to sleep even though it was only 4 o'clock in the afternoon because he was too damn lazy to get off his ass and _do _anything – having it right in front of you made it pretty obvious.

This was what she wanted.

o

They let some time slide by, they went out for dinner, they came back, and then they started arguing again.

"Okay," he said. "So what's the real difference between starting now and starting later? If we start now," he added, "they'll grow up sooner, and we can have a longer retirement."

_Typical Shikamaru logic._ This was getting annoying. She still wanted to argue, and he was already moving on to other exercises, having jumped to a certain conclusion.

"Please be joking."

"Why not? What's so hard? We just do what we usually do without the birth control, and then…"

"Shikamaru! You can't just… you can't…"

"Give me a good reason why not," he said. She looked ready to, so he interrupted her before she could start. "You know what else is good about this?"

"I give up. What?"

"There's no question that if they're born here, our kids will belong to Konoha. So that has to say something to people – you know, that you'd let your kids belong to this place instead of Suna. It's a sacrifice on your part, or on Suna's part. They can't see it as anything else."

"So now we're having a baby for a passport and to make people _think _I've defected."

"I still don't see why this bothers you." He knew she'd come around eventually. This was an excellent plan. She could be a citizen of Konoha without denouncing Suna. She could retain loyalty to Gaara and live in Konoha without fear of being expelled. This wasn't exactly what was on his mind at the moment, though. He kept hoping that if he kissed her hard enough, she'd stop talking.

"Shikamaru," she said, interrupting his ministrations. "This is serious business."

"Yes."

"You can't just have a baby on a whim. You _shouldn't, _anyway. Would you listen to what I'm saying?"

"How am I supposed to when you're doing _that_?"

"Shikamaru!"

He sat up, parting their skin. His expression said, _stop being so much work. _She glared at him. "This isn't a game or a joke," she said.

"I know."

"And I don't know if you've realized this yet, if you've really thought about it, but as it turns out, kids are a lot of work. A real drag. So much that one might even call them _troublesome, _if one were so inclined."

He shrugged. "Tch, most people seem to manage."

"Diapers, waking up in the middle of the night, crying, diapers, no sex, teething, waking up in the middle of the night."

"I think you're repeating yourself."

"I'm not repeating. I'm reinforcing. Toddlers. Kunai thrown in the house… breaking things. Teenagers. Slumber parties. Waking up in the middle of the night. They're a real pain, you know. Smelly, noisy…"

"Only babies smell, and they're not that noisy."

"Oh yes they are. With our luck they will be, anyway."

He looked at her seriously. "Are you saying you're still not up for it?"

She seethed with a feminine rage. "That's not it. _I'm _perfectly capable. I'm just afraid you don't really know what we're getting into."

"I am a genius, right?"

"You'd just better be," she said. "For a genius, you're acting like a real airhead."

"Are we starting yet?" he whined.

"Shikamaru! You can't just decide to have a kid and get pregnant just like that!"

"Why not?"

"You have to _think _about these things for a while you know… you can't just jump into them. If I get pregnant tonight and you change your mind tomorrow, I will show you the meaning of trouble."

"I've thought about it all I need to. That's what I was doing while you were away."

"Fine then, _I _need to think about this. There's a lot else to consider. We're ninja. What are we going to do when we have missions?"

"It's Konoha. The Konoha shinobi take care of their own. The Hokage takes responsibility for all children left behind during missions. Anyway, there are always my parents."

"I am not taking charity from anyone."

"It's not charity! Look, that's how it works. Lots of kids have ninja parents. _I _have ninja parents. When they both had missions, there was a different Chuunin who came to pick me up at the Academy, that's all. It's not a big deal around here."

"It's a big deal for me!"

An hour later, still going strong:

"Does it bother you to get pregnant before you're married or something?"

"What, you're worried about my reputation _now_? After two years? I'm not exactly going to be some demure blushing little bride…"

"All right already, jeez, I get the point."

Still later:

"This is insane," she said suddenly. "I can't believe we're doing this."

"Did you change your mind already? What a bother…"

"No! Look, just give me a minute to get used to the idea, okay? I'm a ninja, not a baby machine. I wasn't built for this."

"Could have fooled me…"

"Would you stop that? … What the hell am I going to tell Gaara and Kankurou? Did you figure that out yet? Would _you _like to be the one to tell them your master plan is to get me knocked up?"

They probably spent half the night talking. But they did spend the other half of the night otherwise employed.

o

The next day she had to leave again. Shikamaru was disgruntled as he stumbled around his apartment that morning, and he showed obvious distaste when he saw her fully dressed. "How long does this take again?"

"Nine months. _Why_ everyone calls you a genius when you don't know something like that, I'll never know. But we don't even know if it worked yet." It was weird to talk about this, she reflected. _I might be pregnant right now._ _Oh holy sh... _"Well, I have to go. If there's any news, I'll let you know."

"You do realize you're turning into his lapdog," he said as he watched her heft her fan onto her back. He'd gone through a lot of trouble for her this morning. He'd gotten out of bed before he had to, he'd made breakfast, and he'd even put pants on before noon. This was asking a lot on his day off.

"Shut up! He's my little brother and I need to go. I shouldn't have even come this time. I know I was really pushing it. I had to promise to meet up with Baki-sensei and Kankurou on the way back in River Country. There's a missing-nin that was spotted hiding out in one of the smaller villages out there."

"He doesn't have to send you every time."

"It's a sign of respect that he does."

Something made him pause. "Missing-nin?"

She exchanged a glance with him and rolled her eyes. "Oh no. Don't you start that."

"If you're pregnant, maybe you shouldn't…"

"I told you, don't start that! We don't even know if I'm pregnant yet."

"But if you are…"

"Baki-sensei and Kankurou will be there and it will be fine and we'll argue about this next time," she said, backing out of the door before he could get another word in. Arguments with Shikamaru only led in one direction, and she did _not _have time.

o

Happily, his whole team had the day off, so they were sitting in their barbecue restaurant for dinner, getting ready to watch Chouji try and put the place out of business once again. Shikamaru was tired after having spent the entire previous night arguing, etc., with Temari. Ino didn't look like she'd gotten much sleep either. Shikamaru idly wondered who the lucky victim had been this time.

Chouji looked upbeat. Glowing, even. Not unusual before a big meal, but still… obviously something was making him happy…

He looked back and forth from Ino to Chouji. They were obviously avoiding each other's eyes. And the conclusion that was forming in Shikamaru's head was not a comfortable one.

_Time for a serious amount of sake._

"You found the law you were looking for?" Chouji asked later that night.

"Have some more sake."

"So is she going to defect? Man, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if it's that. I would not want to be on Gaara's bad side," Ino said.

"That's not it exactly… hey waiter, can we have some more sake?"

**o**


	6. Chapter 6

o

**o**

6

**o**

Sakura sat down opposite from her best friend at the cafe table. They met for lunch whenever both were free and in town. Sakura noticed Ino's eyes light up as soon as the two had said their hellos. "What's that look for?" Sakura asked as she stashed her purse under the table.

"What? Oh… nothing…"

"Oh no you don't!" Sakura cried. "I know that look. That's your _I-know-something-you-don't-know _look."

"I'm not saying anything. I swore."

"That is not fair," Sakura chided. "You can't _tell _me that you're keeping a secret from me. Now I have to know!"

"I'm not telling!" Ino squealed, giggling.

"Oh yes you are. You're telling me right now, or I'm never letting you in on hospital gossip again."

Ino looked stricken by this threat. She carefully made sure there was no one sitting around them. "Okay… you know Shikamaru and Temari?"

"Old news," Sakura said, waving her hand.

"I'm pretty sure you haven't heard _this _yet…" Ino said with glee. She was never as happy as when she was spreading new gossip acquired on good authority…

o

Temari was having a problem. Kankurou hadn't said more than two words to her since she'd told him she was marrying Shikamaru.

Normally this would be a blessing, since half the words that came out of his mouth these days were vulgar, however this situation was not conducive to a successful mission. She wondered if the other ninja with them (he was a Chuunin from the Sand, one of the few with tracking skills that worked well outside the desert) was noticing that Kankurou didn't seem to be speaking to her.

Of course, given their family's reputation, it probably didn't seem all that strange to the Chuunin.

They'd spent a couple of nights on their target's trail. The goal was to flush him out and channel his retreat so that he'd flee eastward, where Baki was waiting to intercept. Ninja who had seen him in action had judged it unlikely that he would try to engage anyone in combat unless he had no other option. They had a lot of ground to cover, but luckily the target was fairly easy to follow. She and Kankurou flanked the tracker and kept their eyes peeled for signs that their target was trying to double back. The mission was easy so far; the only difficult part for her had been quelling the urge to beat Kankurou to a bloody pulp for being such an obstinate jerk about everything.

All three sensed the new chakra signature at the same time. They moved into formation seamlessly.

But it turned out the chakra signature was Baki's.

The four ninja met on the forest floor, none of them looking too happy with their apparent failure.

The poor Chuunin tracker stood between Baki and the other two, staring dumbly at the ground. "The trail ends here," he said. "It just… ends."

While he circled the area, searching for traces that their target had managed to double back, the other three stayed put and tried not to vent their aggravation.

"Why do we care about this guy, anyway?" Temari asked Baki. "This seems a little excessive just for someone caught inside the village without permission."

"Reports from eyewitnesses suggest he may have been a spy. He seemed to be trying to determine the Kazekage's movements. We don't know what his objectives are, but the Kazekage wants him interrogated."

She looked to Kankurou. He looked away from her and started back to Suna.

"Oy, Kankurou, where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"This mission is over. We lost him," he said, facing Baki, still pointedly avoiding her.

"Why are you giving up so easily?" she shouted after him. "Kankurou?"

He didn't turn around.

She bit back her fury as she watched him disappear. _If he doesn't start talking to me soon, I'll _make _him talk to me. Even if that means making him scream in pain…_

o

Temari growled, stormed out of the bathroom, slammed an innocent and unsuspecting door, and continued to stomp through the house.

She was not a very gentle-natured person. There were a lot of things she hated. There was a rather long list, in fact. She hated the way certain girls looked at her when they saw her eating the way she normally ate, which was not exactly ladylike. She hated kunoichi that, in her opinion, made kunoichi look bad by being weak little girls. She hated her hair. She really hated getting sand in her cleavage, which was an unfortunate fact of life for Suna women. But what she _really_ hated was getting all worked up about something only to be let down.

A few weeks before, the thought that she would be furious because she _wasn't _pregnant would have been laughable.

_It's because I've got that boy on the brain. He's infiltrating everything. Before he brought this up I never even would have imagined that a stupid pregnancy test could piss me off so badly. _She decided to head toward the target range. A few dozen (or hundred) kunai would be just the thing. However, after a minute of storming through the halls it occurred to her that she'd left the pregnancy test just sitting there on the sink… 

She turned on her heels and started back toward the bathroom in a hurry. What a pain it would be if someone found that. If someone (say, Kankurou, for instance) found that box and that stupid little plastic tester thing sitting on the sink (with a look of abject horror on his face) and started jumping to conclusions before she had a chance to explain (his mouth dropped open, his fists balling in fury…).

"Kankurou?"

_Oh shit, _she thought. Kankurou looked up at her a little dumbly.

His mouth was hanging open.

She was pissed. "_How _many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my bathroom!" she shrieked.

"What the hell?" he shouted, holding up the box. "Don't tell me…"

"Shut up! I'm not pregnant! And you can use your own shower and I don't _care _if it's smaller…"

"You're… not…"

"Not that it's any of your business, but no, I'm not pregnant."

"So why are you so upset?"

"Because I'm not pregnant! Get out of my bathroom!"

"But… wait a second…"

"Out! Out!"

She started for her fan, which was leaning on the doorframe, and realized that she might have said more than she'd meant to.

"You mean you went through that whole mission not even knowing if…"

"_I'm _sorry, did you think I was just talking to myself when I told you to _get the hell out of my bathroom?_" She couldn't deal with this strange sadness of _not _being pregnant and Kankurou at the same time. She needed to be alone. Now.

"Since when did you…"

"_Out!"_

This was quickly turning into a bad replay of the argument they'd had when she was fourteen, which had started with him stealing her shampoo and ended with Karasu as a pile of sawdust and bolts.

"Wait… you're _trying _to get pregnant?"

"So what if I am? Is it any of your business? No!"

He looked dumbfounded. He looked even more upset than she felt. "Have you gone fucking nuts?"

"I'm going to Konoha and I'm getting married and I'm starting a family. If you don't like it, tough shit."

She could tell he was frowning deeply, even if it wasn't obvious with his face paint. It was like he hadn't taken her seriously before, and now everything was starting to sink in. "So that's how it is," he said dully.

There were so many things she wanted to say. _It's not that I don't care about you. It's just that I love him, and I think I might actually want something like a normal life, you know, like the kind everyone else seems to have…_

She couldn't say any of that, though. That would be going against the unspoken rules. But one thing had to be made clear. "Just because I'll be living in Konoha doesn't mean I'll turn my back on Suna."

Kankurou looked at her sullenly. "You know how the laws work. You'll have to defect to Konoha."

"I'm not defecting to Konoha."

"So what, they'll just let you live there? Even though you're not one of them? It's a ninja village, Temari."

"You think I don't know that? Look, we have a plan, all right? They're going to accept me and I don't have to defect."

"How does that work?"

"Easily, once I get pregnant."

Even after she had talked him out of killing Shikamaru, the argument did not end happily. But at least he was saying more than two words to her at a time.

o

Three weeks, and even if Kankurou was starting to forgive her, it was clear that the Suna villagers were not pleased. Not only did everyone in Konoha apparently think she was a spy, but everyone in Suna had jumped to the conclusion that she was a traitor. Word got around fast. It was hard to be the daughter of one Kazekage and the sister of another and, at the same time, someone who was apparently changing alliances. The worst part was having to admit the truth to her old Genin team, the kids she had turned into ninja with her own hands until their last successful Chuunin exam. They looked at her like they'd been stabbed in the back, and it was almost worse when they spoke false words of congratulations. She supposed they would get over it. She _hoped _they would get over it. After all, she would still be a ninja of the Sand, and they might still have missions together once in a while.

If Gaara would ever talk to her again, that was.

He seemed to have taken a page from Kankurou's book and was giving her the silent treatment. This was not unusual for Gaara. He had effectively given both of his siblings the silent treatment for the majority of his first twelve years of life.

She had to barge into his office without warning in order to get him alone and force him to talk to her.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"That missing-nin. I heard he was headed east. How come you haven't…?"

"I sent word to Konoha days ago. They've already dispatched their ANBU."

"You don't think this is a mission that entails a joint effort?"

"I don't remember asking your opinion," he said coolly. "He's a missing-nin from the Mist. He's not our concern unless he's on our land."

"Then why would you…"

"I already sent a squad of Jounin. They left this morning," he said.

_Oh, _she thought. _So that's how you're going to play… I'm never going to see Shikamaru again, am I? Not unless I run away for real…_

"Gaara…"

"You failed your last mission concerning this missing-nin. What do you expect?"

That was Gaara, all right. He seemed so cold and direct, but she knew better. "This has nothing to do with the last mission."

He didn't look up, didn't respond. She knew she was on thin ice, but it was now or never. "Gaara," she said, crossing her arms sharply. She drew a deep breath. He would know if she was lying, so she couldn't lie to him. "If you really don't want it, I won't go over to Konoha. I'm a ninja of the Sand and I'll live with it. I'll do whatever you tell me. I'll still follow your orders. He can't change that."

Gaara didn't appear to have heard her. For the next five minutes he was bent over his work, examining the stats on the newest batch of Genin out of the Suna Academy. He was acting like she wasn't there – but again, she knew him better than that.

"Fine. Go to Konoha," he said finally. "But take Kankurou."

o

There was no hanging around on the street trying to find Shikamaru when she was with Kankurou. They went directly to the Hokage, who didn't look surprised at their arrival.

"Unfortunately you may have wasted a trip. He escaped our squads as well and hasn't been seen for two days," she said, but she added gravely, "But we now have reason to believe he's headed back to Suna."

"Why is that?" Kankurou asked.

"We've received information from one of our spies in Rain Country that he was hired by the daimyo in secret to assassinate the Kazekage."

It was widely known that the Rain Country daimyo did not like the way the relations between his country and Wind had progressed since Gaara came into power. Wind now had entirely too much clout in its employ, too much for the Rain daimyo's liking anyway. Of course, it would be too overt a maneuver to send Rain ninja. If he hired missing-nin under the table, the trail wouldn't lead back to him. This kind of move was hardly unprecedented.

There was a monster of an awkward silence while Temari and Kankurou stared at her. And then Temari sighed with relief.

"Thank goodness it's nothing serious," she said.

"Yeah, I was worried for a second there," Kankurou added.

Temari smiled. "Hmm. Well, I suppose we do still have to report this to the Kazekage."

Kankurou shrugged. "Maybe not… he does like surprises every once in a while."

"Should I even ask what you're talking about?" the Hokage asked dryly.

"He hasn't had a serious assassin in ages," Temari said. "This is just the thing to get his spirits up."

"He isn't big on sitting in his office all day, but he doesn't often have a good excuse to leave," Kankurou said.

"Now he'll have to go after the missing-nin. He can't very well let that kind of threat be drawn into Suna again. It's a terrible liability, with all those children in the streets."

"You kind of have to feel bad for the guy… but who's going to cry over one less missing-nin?"

"Yes, well, if he tries to kill Gaara, he's asking for it," Temari said. "But who knows, maybe Gaara will catch him when he's in a merciful mood."

Kankurou snorted.

The Hokage looked slightly annoyed. "Although you don't seem to take this threat seriously, I have already sent a message of warning to the Kazekage. I suggest you return to Suna as soon as possible."

They agreed, bowed to her politely and left the office. When the door had closed behind them, Temari added, "…or, we could stay for the night. We have to sleep sometime. Given the timing, it would increase the chances of being able to intercept him en route."

"You're not concerned for your precious little brother's life?" Kankurou asked snidely.

"Ha ha, very funny. Look, what if there are additional reports from the Leaf ninja in the field?"

"Then the Hokage will forward them to Gaara. We don't need to be here anymore."

"We don't need to be home, either," she added.

She never had to plead with Kankurou. All she had to do was stand there with her hands on her hips and give him _that look, _a certain sharpness of the eyes that communicated her killing intent, until his will crumbled

Kankurou groaned. "Fine. Meet me at the gate tomorrow morning." He proceeded to walk off with his shoulders hunched and fists in both pockets. Temari smirked at his departing back. She knew his habits, and they were worse in Konoha than they were in Suna. It wasn't as if he wouldn't enjoy himself too…

**o**

She left the Hokage's tower and started off toward the Academy, where she knew Shikamaru would be this time of day. She noticed that she was getting weird looks from half of the people on the street. This in itself was normal. Suna ninja were watched with suspicion in Konoha. That was a fact of life. What was really weird was how _amused _everyone seemed.

Seemingly out of nowhere, she spotted Hyuuga Hinata on the street, and the young woman was actually walking toward her. "Ano… good afternoon, Temari-san."

"Hello, Hinata-san," she said, slightly shocked. Why was the little Hyuuga talking to her? Hinata _never _talked to her. Temari had been living life under the impression that this kunoichi was too scared of her to willingly come within ten feet.

"Ano… congratulations, Temari-san."

Temari stared in shock for a few seconds before the girl's words registered. And when she realized what Hinata knew, she kept staring in shock. _Who told _her?

"Ah… thanks. We're not getting married for a while, though."

"Yes, I heard… ano, Naruto told me. I was talking with some of the others, and it is an honor that you have chosen to live here. Please… accept this gift," she said, blushing as thoroughly as if it were Naruto in front of her, handing something to the older kunoichi.

"What? Oh… thanks." She was rather taken aback by this whole awkward conversation. She didn't have friends who were girls and she didn't talk to other kunoichi outside of work. The fact that _Hinata _was talking to her frankly floored her. She looked at the thing in her hand: a small wooden box. Inside there was loose-leaf tea. "Oh, this is…" (grabbing for something polite to say) "this is… nice."

"Ano… it's an herbal blend that promotes fertility. Well, goodbye!"

Temari's mouth was still hanging open when she looked up and the younger kunoichi was gone. Her eyes were still wide a minute later, and her thoughts were flying.

_HOW DID SHE KNOW? Wait a minute; she said she heard from Naruto. How in the hell did Naruto…?_

No more delays. She made a bee-line for the Academy. As soon as Shikamaru was done with his little class, she caught his arm in a death grip.

"You're always so friendly when we meet," he mused.

"Shikamaru, how many people did you tell?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

"Just Chouji and Ino." …_While we were kind of drunk, _he neglected to add.

She stared at him in silent rage for a minute. _"Ino?"_

"Yeah, they're my best friends, what the hell?"

She began to pull him along the street by his arm until he started walking with her. Away from the school. It was not safe to be around children when she wanted to swear this badly.

"Ino? You told Ino?"

"Why wouldn't I tell Ino?"

Temari let go of him and threw her arms up. "Why didn't you just get a bullhorn and stand on a roof? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Gaara found out before I had the chance to tell him. Can you imagine what that'll be like for you? The sand in your hair will be the least of your problems."

Shikamaru shrugged. Looking at her a little strangely, he said, "I don't suppose…"

"I know what you're going to ask and the answer is _no. _Didn't I tell you I'd let you know if it worked? …Stop changing the subject! I can't believe you told Ino. The whole village probably thinks I'm some kind of prostitute."

"What's worse, a prostitute or a spy?"

She bit her tongue. Her fingers itched for her fan. _Why do I want to marry him again?!_

He sensed her obvious killing intent and decided to continue changing the subject. "So you're not…. Well, you know what they say. If at first you don't succeed…"

She breathed. Maybe it was best to let it go. The damage was done, at any rate.

"It bothers me that I don't know what we did wrong," she admitted in a much calmer voice. "You would think that this would be a walk in the park. I mean, I spent so many years freaking out over the fact that it was so easy to get pregnant."

"It's like a game," he said. "You never win the first time you play. You have to work at it for a while."

"Then you better get to work _now_," she said. "I have to leave for Suna first thing in the morning."

**o**

"You ready to go?" she asked Kankurou. The three of them were standing at the gates the following morning.

"Mmm," he grumbled.

She nodded goodbye to Shikamaru, who had come to see them off. Kankurou was already giving him a murderous look, so it would have caused a needless scene if she had kissed the Leaf-nin. She rolled her eyes at him instead, trying to communicate the problem to him without any overt gestures, and he shrugged as if understanding. A moment later she was already chasing after Kankurou, who didn't seem inclined to let her say a long goodbye.

He was quiet for most of the morning while they traveled back to Suna. "So," she said, "sleep with anyone interesting?"

Kankurou's sex life was a constant source of amusement, even when they were fighting. She would call off a grudge just to hear about all the seemingly innocent girls she had thought better of suddenly showing up in his bedroom.

"Get pregnant?" he countered.

"Damned if I know. You can't tell this early."

"Thanks, but I don't need details."

"Did you not just ask? Anyway, back to your sex life."

"I don't have to report to you just because you're bored with your own relationship," he replied, clearly annoyed. He had always liked to brag to Temari, so this took her by surprise.

"Nice try, but no good. Just tell me who you slept with and I'll leave you alone."

"Why do you care?"

"I don't, really. I just think it's funny."

He sighed overtly. She didn't miss the aggravation in his posture. "Don't get your hopes up. There's nothing to report," he said dryly.

Temari's eyes sparkled. _That explains the mood, anyway. At least he's not pissed at me again. _"Awww…Did my little baby brother get rejected by the mean Leaf girlies?"

"Oh shut up," he said.

"Whatever happened to Yamanaka Ino?" she prodded. "I thought you and she were such _very _good friends."

He was silent for a minute. "She wouldn't give me the time of day," he confessed.

Temari tried to keep her laughter to herself. "Oh my. What did you do to piss her off?"

"The hell I know. She didn't have a problem with me last time."

"Hmm. Maybe it's all that extra weight you're packing now."

"What?" he snarled.

"Oh, nothing…"

He was silent for a minute, but she distinctly heard him add, "You're one to talk…"

"Excuse me?"

He sneered at her.

As much as she hated to admit it, this was as close as she ever got to her brother. For them, this was the equivalent of a heartfelt conversation.

"You know, I'm going to miss this," he said unexpectedly.

"What? Arguing with me?"

"Yes."

She wanted to retort, but she held her tongue. This was the first time he had admitted to the fact that she was leaving him.

"I'll miss you, too," she said.

o

He decided to tell his parents. It seemed like the right thing to do.

He started off just telling them that he was going to get married, which didn't come as too much of a surprise to either of them. His parents had met Temari. His mother, while openly polite to her, always kept her eye on the younger kunoichi, which suggested that she distrusted Temari as much as the other villagers, and his father had always just regarded both the Sand nin and her relationship with Shikamaru with open disbelief. The only difference tonight was that his mother looked at him with the same disbelief.

When they asked him how on earth he planned to get her into the village, he told them, _well, there's this law…_

As soon as he explained it out loud, he wished he could take it back. His father just stared at him blankly. "Are you old enough for that?" he asked.

Shikamaru died a little inside. Surely his parents must have figured out by now that he wasn't a virgin… "I am twenty-two," he said.

"What about the Kazekage?" his father continued, not looking convinced.

Shikamaru shrugged. "He hasn't killed me yet."

After a minute more of his father's interrogation, their attention shifted to his mother when his father asked her, "Don't you have anything to say about this?"

Yoshino didn't respond right away. She looked a little spaced out.

"Uh… Mom?" Shikamaru prodded.

It didn't take him long to figure out that his mother had done the math and all she cared about was that the equation ended with grandchildren.

Just like Temari hadn't realized what she'd wanted all along…

"She just needs to have one baby, right? Hmmm… well, it can't hurt to be too careful… maybe a couple more, just in case. Everyone kept saying how there would never be an heir to the Nara clan after Shikamaru, since he's so… Shikamaru. And I'm going to be the first one to have grandchildren. Chisako doesn't even have any grandchildren yet, and she has three daughters, and two of them are already married. Hmm…"

It appeared that his mother was just thinking out loud and didn't notice the other two were still in the room.

Shikaku clapped him on the back. "You got yourself into this one," he said.

It turned out to be difficult to explain to Temari the next time he saw her that his mother had already picked out names.

o

Gaara's reaction was not what she had expected.

There were certain situations you did not want to be in with Gaara. An uncomfortable silence with Gaara was torture. When you screwed up a mission and he got that look in his face that said _I could kill you with the merest bending of my chakra, and it is only because Suna is already short on manpower that you are still alive, although you may prove to be no more useful than cannon fodder, _it was not an enjoyable experience. Temari had expected at least that kind of response, if not large-scale destruction. She had not expected this.

Gaara was sitting at his desk, his elbows on its surface, his head in his hands. Gaara was laughing.

"What's so funny?" Temari demanded.

Gaara didn't answer.

"I said _what's so funny?_" she asked, her tone slightly louder.

Gaara kept laughing.

Temari's face was red, her eyes were bright, and her patience with Suna was just about at an end. She turned sharply and stormed out of the office. Gaara didn't seem to notice. His laughter followed her down the hall.

Temari didn't know which one of her brothers was worse.

o

It had been a month. Still nothing.

_This is supposed to be easy, _she scolded herself. _Shikamaru's right. Stupid people do it all the time. Insert tab A into slot B, one plus one equals baby. Why isn't this working?_

Temari was not one to approach any mission with less than one hundred percent effort. She would achieve her objective or die trying. Happily, this was a mission for which Shikamaru was more than willing to help her in pursuit of that goal as often as necessary. (It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.)

He did try to plan logically. He soon learned that it was a mistake to broach the subject of ovulation cycles in the middle of a restaurant, but this didn't stop him from making up a schedule when they got home. Still, as a ninja, being as athletic as she was, her body wasn't always on time. This led to plenty of false alarms, but plenty more problems with scheduling.

But it was hard enough just to figure out when they were going to be able to see each other. They'd never planned to meet before. Their lives as ninja were too disorganized for that. Missions always came up on short notice. It was almost an impossible task to figure out when they would both be available.

"That week won't work," she said, biting her lip and scratching it out on his calendar.

"Well, why not?"

"I'm busy that week."

"You said you were going to try to…"

"I'm busy having my period that week," she said, interrupting.

After a moment of thought, he groaned and flopped back on the bed. "This is too hard," he observed.

"Yeah. Notice how most people get married first?"

"You should just move in here. That would make it easier."

"I can't just do that, Shikamaru, remember?"

She felt like tearing her hair out. _So we have to get pregnant to get married, but in order to get pregnant we have to already be married. Perfect._

"Can't you pull some strings with the Hokage?"

"Can't you beg your brother for a favor?"

"I already did! Do you have any idea what that was like? Picture me going up to Gaara and asking him for a week off because I'm planning to have sex with you when I ovulate. _Picture it._"

Shikamaru didn't look like he wanted to picture it.

"The fact is, he can't just organize missions around me wanting to see you. He's got people looking over his shoulders. I refuse to make him look bad. It took him too long to get the credibility he has now. I'm not going to let him waste everything he's earned because of me."

"Then what do we do?"

o

Once, he made the mistake of letting Kiba and Chouji take him out drinking. He didn't know she would have that one night to spare before having to leave for Suna again in the morning.

She spent a few hours dashing around the village hunting him down, slapping away drunken ninja who tried to flirt with her while she was trying to deduce what bar they had hit next, before she finally gave up and went back to his apartment to wait for him. He was delivered to the door at four in the morning, barely upright.

She tried everything she could think of. He fell asleep.

She tracked Chouji down before she had to leave early the next morning and left him with a string of death threats that he would not soon forget.

o

Why couldn't her life just work like it was supposed to, for once?

Months went by. It was more than aggravating. This was supposed to be easy. This was supposed to be natural. But nothing was ever as easy as it was supposed to be, for her. This was harder than beating him at shougi. She'd managed to do _that _after only eight weeks of playing against him.

(Sure, he was letting her win that one time, but still.)

_Maybe I wasn't really meant to be a mother…_

It was dark in her bedroom. The shadows were creeping around everywhere.

"Temari?"

The thought had a ring of truth in it. _What an idiot I was. Of course I'm not supposed to be a mother. God, what kind of fucked-up kids would I have?_

"Hey, Temari?"

He was lying on her bed. He had come to see her in Suna for a change. She hadn't said much to him all night, and he was clearly bothered by it.

_I can't believe I let him talk me into this._

All her misgivings from the start came back to bite her in the face.

_This is ridiculous. I'm making myself ridiculous. For what?_

She pulled on her clothes and pointedly ignored the look he was giving her. She continued to avoid him even when he actually got out of bed and tried to cut her off at the doorway.

_This stupid little fantasy was doomed from the beginning._

(Because it was easier to let it go than to keep wanting something she couldn't have.)

She would screw up any kid she'd mother, obviously, and this was just fate's way of rubbing it in her face. The whole thing was obviously a lost cause. If they kept this up, ten years from now they'd still be stealing all the little C- and D-ranked missions to each other's countries, shacking up for a few nights at a time, moving on in the morning… until he decided it was too much of a bother, anyway. And knowing him, that was only a matter of time.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the room, closing the door to the outside world. "Come on. Five more minutes," he said.

"Cut it out. I have border duty."

He rolled his eyes pointedly. "I don't think anyone's planning an invasion for two in the morning."

"I have to go," she said, pulling away from him.

_Only a matter of time, _she told herself.

**o**


	7. Chapter 7

o

**o**

7

**o**

She appeared in Konoha a week later, expecting to have a long talk with him – amongst other activities. She wasn't ready to give up just yet, after all, in spite of her misgivings. She was nothing if not tenacious.

Instead of finding him at his apartment she was forced to track him down on the street again. She found him at the barbecue with Chouji and Ino, fueling up in preparation for a week-long mission that promised nothing but trail rations. The expression of shock and apprehension on his face when she walked up to the table with her hands on her hips was priceless.

His team was due to set off any minute and Shikamaru would not be back until after Temari had to leave again. Apparently the gods were against them. In a move of utter frustration and more than a little desperation, he snuck her into the barbecue restaurant bathroom while the other two members of his team started off to the Hokage tower without him (and, had he known it, laughed at him behind his back without mercy).

"I hope this hasn't been some sick fantasy of yours," Temari said acidly. (There was going to be a bruise from the faucet, she just knewit.)

"Hardly," he deadpanned in response.

Bathroom sinks: not the most comfortable of fixtures. Temari reflected, while trying to ignore the sounds of clanking dishes and flaming grills that were bleeding through the walls from the nearby kitchen, that this was quite possibly the least romantic setting she could ever imagine. Even if she laughed when he knocked over the soap dispenser, she was not happy. And the situation was not improved when it turned out that the bathroom door had a faulty lock. One underage waiter was summarily scarred for life.

They snuck out the window, afraid they were going to get ratted on to the management.

"This is getting ridiculous," she said, her cheeks still flaming over the public humiliation. She wouldn't meet his gaze as she walked him to the Hokage tower. "You'd better not be laughing, Nara."

"I'm not," he said with a perfectly straight face, although his eyes were giving him away. His mood got less sunny as they walked. She was unusually tight-lipped today. It did not bode well.

"I'll write you when I get back?" he said.

"Sure," she said, not meeting his gaze. Again, the lack of banter.

_Shit, _he thought. But he didn't have time to deal with it now. Much as he loved her, there were such things as missions, and he wasn't a shinobi just for the wardrobe.

o

Gaara, after years and years of practice, had utterly perfected the art of suppressing his emotions. His face was notoriously blank. This was occasionally a liability, like now, for instance. He was sick of people coming into his office to bitch and moan, but unfortunately, as Kazekage, he couldn't complain about it, and where other people might have reverted to subtle means of communication to show impatience, Gaara wouldn't stoop that low. What made it even worse was when it was Kankurou. They rarely talked like brothers – usually it was just business – but when they talked like brothers, Kankurou tended to abuse the privilege and vented on the same subject for hours on end to no purpose whatsoever.

"Nobody likes it. The shinobi complain to me like I can do something about it. _She _doesn't even seem to like it anymore. She's all sulky and moody. One minute she's fine, the next she's screaming. It's annoying. I can't believe she wants to have a kid. Why'd she get so soft all of a sudden? It's not _like _her, damnit."

_Time to put the rant to a stop. _"She hasn't been back there in almost a month," Gaara said off-handedly.

"Can't you just make up a mission and send her there? This stick up her ass is starting to really get on my nerves."

"Already did," he said. "She refused."

"Then that would… wait, what?" Kankurou interrupted himself, perplexed.

"I offered to write a six-month visa for her," Gaara said. "She said she wasn't interested in going there anymore. Said she'd changed her mind."

All of them had been trained to hide their emotions as much as possible, so it only took Kankurou a few seconds to recompose himself. "What?... Oh. That's… that's great. I guess. That's… different. She really said that?"

"Yes. Said she had realized she wasn't cut out for it. Said she didn't want to throw away her career as a kunoichi of the Sand."

Kankurou laughed shortly and bitterly, sounding, to Gaara's ears, unsurprised, but disappointed. "Why the hell didn't she say anything to me?"

Gaara looked up from his paperwork innocently. He didn't usually use words when a glare would communicate sufficiently. "I don't think she's even told him."

"Eh?"

"She hasn't been answering any of his letters," he said calmly, idly filling out some paperwork on the days' missions. "There is a large pile of them amassing in the correspondence office upstairs."

Kankurou was quiet for a while. Gaara could almost predict his thoughts. From disbelief to confusion to… "That can't be right. 'Not cut out for it'? When in the hell has she ever said anything like that?"

"It's none of our business," Gaara said simply.

"Course not. Ha. Not like it should matter. At least she's got it out of her head…" Kankurou didn't sound entirely convincing. "It's for the best," he said.

Gaara didn't answer. There was paperwork to do.

"Isn't it?" Kankurou added uneasily.

Gaara did not sigh. "It is best for us this way, and for Suna," was all the Kazekage said.

Kankurou filled in the rest by himself. "Shit," he said.

o

She rolled out of bed, put her feet on the floor, and felt slightly guilty and hugely miserable the way she always did in the mornings now, because he wasn't there, and by the looks of it he would never be there again. And she hated him for making her feel like this. And she hated herself for letting him get her so dependent. And she hated Suna, and she hated Konoha. It was not going to be a good morning.

And she really hated Kankurou, who was pounding on her door and yelling at her to hurry up and get out of bed.

"What is this all about?" she asked, rubbing her eyes wearily.

"Damned if I know. Gaara got a message from Konoha and asked to see you."

She held a hand to her aching forehead. _If this is something from Shikamaru…_

"Is this a mission?" she asked, suddenly serious.

"Don't know. Hurry up, though, will you?"

Kankurou seemed oddly cold to her. She wondered if the fact that she had been acting so pissy around everyone lately was starting to get noticed. _Better get used to it. Looks like I'm here to stay for good after all._

She dressed in thirty seconds and followed him to the Kazekage's office without another word. "Is it a mission?" she asked Gaara right off the bat.

"No. It's your friend," Gaara said.

A feeling of dread washed over her. "What about him?"

"He was MIA after a mission. They just found him. Head injury. He's in a coma."

o

To the men of Suna, she was cold and distant. She always had been. When there had been ninja who thought they were worthy of her, she always ended up turning them away in the end. She was too good for them. There was only one living ninja that could make her forget her pride. And god it made her feel stupid and ridiculous to put aside her pride, which was something that had been drilled into her every year of life up until her father died, but she thought she could stand it as long as it was for his sake.

She spent three days traveling from Suna to Konoha and trying not to think, and it was difficult because she was alone and all she wanted to do was think about him. About him and all the mistakes she had made, about how much of an ass she had been, about how much she hated that he was turning her into someone who wanted to be happy rather than someone who just wanted to be a good ninja. About how much she loved it at the same time. About everything he had done for her that she had never thanked him for. She was so far on edge by the time she reached the gate that she didn't trust herself to talk for fear of sounding weak.

She didn't even bother reporting to the Hokage. She went straight to the hospital, and even though it was the middle of the night the nurses at the station took one look at her, realized that she would stand there glaring at them until visiting hours if they didn't do something, and decided it would be all right if she saw him for just five minutes. They sent a nurse to bring her up to his room. She opened the door for Temari. "Five minutes," she said. Temari nodded and stepped into the room quietly.

She was angry to see that they hadn't even given him his own room. He was in the middle of three beds. The closest one was empty, the farthest one partitioned off by a hanging curtain.

His eyes were closed, his skin was pale. He looked dead to the world. At least they hadn't hooked him up to those awful machines. Still, she almost couldn't stand to look at him. He was lying there with his chest exposed and one leg in a sling. He looked like he was asleep. She would have given anything to be told that he was just asleep. "Shikamaru."

Hoping he would do something. Anything. _Something._

He didn't say anything, didn't move. She could hear her heart beating in her ears. He looked so damn pale there on the bed. Like a girl. She didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

Unsure of herself, she went to the chair beside his bed and sat down. She didn't know what she was supposed to do now. He was well beyond her help. She couldn't _do _anything about this, but somehow she still felt that this was her fault. But she wanted to talk. "I don't think I'm very good at this. I've never tried this with anyone but you." She held her breath for a second, wondering if there would be a response. "I love you."

She almost never said it out loud, and even now, even though he was unconscious, she felt her face flame up with embarrassment. Just the fact that he didn't respond at all was enough to show her that he was gone.

All the emotional training in the world couldn't stop her eyes from clouding up.

"I've known ninja who are stronger than you," she said, her voice getting increasingly rougher, "but that has nothing to do with it. I know I never say it when I should. I love you. I'd do anything to be with you. Frankly it's embarrassing, but it's the truth. If you don't wake up I don't…"

She caught the words in her throat and stared at the ceiling for a second. She had to stop, or she really was going to cry. She _never _cried. It was absurd. She could feel a sob trying to work its way out of her throat and held it back with determination. "I should have known something like this would happen," she said to herself. "I'm not the type of girl who gets happy endings. I'm a kunoichi."

This was pathetic. She was being absolutely pathetic. Her father would have killed her if she had ever acted this way in front of him. _Kankurou _surely wouldn't let her live it down if he knew. She didn't even want to imagine Gaara's reaction. "I can't believe what you've turned me into," she said to him accusingly, and then immediately regretted it, because there she was, blaming him again for something he couldn't control. "Shikamaru," she said, because it felt good to say his name, "I don't even care what it means to this village. I don't care about your stupid plan. We should have kids together, at least so there's something permanent between us. I want a life with you." She could feel the tears start to come out. "And I'm sorry for being such an ass lately. I just hate it when I don't win. I can't stand to think that… you know what, never mind. Let's just forget about it." She shoved the tears off her cheeks with an angry thumb. "I don't even know what the hell I'm saying. Hey, Lazy. I love you and I want to have your kids. Something like that. God this is pointless, you can't even hear me…"

She saw the nurse's head in the window of the door and she knew her time was almost up. She didn't want to leave, but she felt like she deserved it. She got up from the chair and leaned over his bed. He looked so peaceful. She leaned down to him, one hand gently on his chest, one hand leaning on the bed and supporting her weight. Her lips met his forehead.

o

"Well then, let's get started…"

She gasped and froze, startled. His eyes were open and he was staring at her.

"Are you going to start crying again now or something? Jeez, what a bother…"

She grabbed his shoulder rough with the hand that had been leaning on the bed when she saw the sly grin on his face. Her hand on his chest suddenly became a fist of his shirt. She felt like the floor had just fallen out from under her. Her face was now red with fury. "You mean you've been awake _this whole time…?!_"

"Did I ever say I wasn't?"

"You were pretending to be unconscious, you jerk!"

"Why would I be unconscious? It's just a broken leg. I'm not _that _much of a wimp."

"But… you have a head injury! They said you were in a coma!"

"Chouji's the one with the concussion. I was just napping," he said. His eyes sparkled with amusement. "Are you going to start crying over Chouji now?"

Oh, _now _she was pissed. He deserved something for this. She was going to maul him later. "Would you get jealous if I did?"

"Sure, you're a smartass now. A minute ago you said you loved me…"

"Don't rub it in," she said harshly. Her ninja skills were fast at work trying to subvert and realign all the emotion she'd just built up. She didn't know whether she wanted to wring his skinny neck or kiss him until he passed out. In a fit of confusion she started to yell at him. "Who the hell breaks their leg on a trade mission? You'd think you were nothing but a Genin!"

"What are you talking about? This happened just today, during training."

Temari was silent for several seconds while the mental gears turned. "Gaara is a dead man," she said.

Shikamaru only smirked. "I can't believe you thought I had a concussion."

"I can _give _you one, if you want."

"That's nice. Anyway, where were we?" he said as he pulled her back down to the bed.

"Shikamaru. What are you doing," she deadpanned.

"You said you wanted my babies, if I remember correctly."

"This isn't even a private room."

"The other guy won't notice. He's unconscious. He's in a coma."

"No I'm not," Chouji said with a tone of warning.

Temari's face was even more red now then it had been a few minutes ago. "That's it! As long as you've humiliated me in public enough for one day…"

"Chouji isn't public."

"Oh yes I am," Chouji said menacingly. "If there's indecent exposure, I'm telling the Hokage on you."

"See, he has a head injury. He doesn't know what he's saying."

"Ugh," she grunted. "You total idiot. That's _it._ I'm coming back in six hours when this place opens and making you very sorry."

"I love it when you talk dirty."

"I will never forgive you for this." She had _emoted _ in _public _for godssake…

"How about you forgive me for this and I forgive you for not answering any of my letters?"

"Fine. Get well soon, asshole!" she yelled at him. She walked resolutely toward the door, _very _stiffly, very redly, trying her best not to acknowledge the fact that she had actually cried over this useless, stupid, unfeeling…

She turned on her heels and quickly marched back over to him. She grabbed his head by the hair and kissed him bruisingly, then dropped his head back onto the pillow without remorse and turned away from him and back toward the grinning nurse at the door.

o

Would it really kill the citizenry of Konoha to stop smirking at her? Had the story of the restaurant bathroom gotten around? (It had to have been Ino. It was _always _Ino.)

_We should definitely start our own country_, she decided. _There is no way we can keep living here. We have too many stories to live down._

And if that Inuzuka Kiba didn't wipe that grin off his face she was marching straight over there to do it for him in as painful a manner as she could achieve. It didn't help that his mother was standing right next to him with the exact same look. She remembered hearing that Inuzukas can smell everything, and that meant _everything, _and she thought uncomfortably about how she was looking forward to seeing Shikamaru…She blushed furiously. She was not even going to start down that avenue of thought.

She had spent the rest of the night in his empty apartment and had decided that one way or another she was not leaving this place until she was pregnant, even if it meant they had to make love for twenty-four hours straight. It was a tough job, but someone had to it. And now she was on her way to the hospital to (probably) roll him out of bed and drag him back and nothing, nothing, _nothing _was going to…

"Temari-san?" the ANBU said after he appeared on the street in front of her.

"Yes?"

"We have received a message from the Kazekage requesting your immediate return to Suna."

Kunoichi did not show emotion, she reminded herself. It was a sign of the state that she was in that she actually had to remind herself.

She nodded briskly. The ANBU vanished.

She gritted her teeth. Duty always came first. There was no question that her first priority was Suna and Gaara. She had a responsibility to uphold as a kunoichi…

o

"Remind me why we're doing this again?"

"Because I need to go back to Suna, and I'm in a hurry."

"That's not what I meant," he said. His leg was in a small brace – the break hadn't been that bad, and the medic-nin had just told him to take it easy for a few days. Unfortunately for him, Temari didn't see this as much of a setback, and didn't understand why he would complain that she'd made him limp after her through the forest outside of Konoha for half a mile.

"Look here, shadow-boy," she said. "You shouldn't have a problem with forests. You're a _Leaf._ And besides, I did the bathroom sink for you. Now strip."

"Do you know how much of a pain that is with a leg brace?"

"I don't care. I had the bruise from that faucet for almost a week."

"Jeez, how tr…"

She interrupted him by pushing him onto the ground. He managed to break his fall, but his leg jolted.

She promptly sat on top of his thighs and ripped his chuunin vest open with two hands. She ignored his raised eyebrows. "Aren't you afraid someone will see us?" he asked.

"Out here? Hardly. Besides, if they're from Konoha," she noted, "the damage has already been done."

He thought to object, but her mouth got in the way before he could get any words out. _At least she can't blame me if we get caught this time._ Pointedly ignoring the branch that was poking him in the back and digging into his spine, he decided to let her have her fun.

But just when he lifted his hands to cradle her head, she stopped.

"What…?" he started to ask in response to the suddenly alert look on her face.

Then his other senses kicked in and it hit him. Murderous intent. Approaching. Fast.

He could have sworn he saw her grit her teeth for a split second before she snapped into business mode. Before he had time to even get up she was on her feet with her fan out. He was just glad she hadn't gotten around to taking off his pants yet. He was suddenly sensitive to the air currents around him, the pattern of the foliage, the smell of the wind.

It faded slowly. They exchanged a glance. "You stay here. I'll follow it," she said, glancing at his leg. She had leapt up to the canopy before he could even protest.

o

"The description you gave us matches the missing-nin that's been hired to assassinate the Kazekage," the Hokage said as she leaned back in her chair.

"But he wasn't heading toward Suna," Temari said. "In fact by the route of his escape I would say he was heading back to Konoha."

She had lost him about half a mile away from the border, and it still grated. This guy was such a pain in the ass. The wimps always were. If it were someone who would stand still and _fight _she could deal with him, no problem…

"Shikamaru, I want you to take Shino and Kiba and capture this ninja once and for all. I'm sick of hearing about him and I'm _very _sick of being embarrassed every time he gets away."

"But my leg…"

"Shizune will fix it."

"The medics said…"

"It'll take her five minutes. She's in her office. Go, now."

They didn't glance at each other as he left, because that would be unprofessional, but Temari noted the agitation in his voice. It was bad enough that they'd been interrupted… but there was nothing for it. They were still ninja. "I will head back to Suna immediately," she said.

"I don't think that will be necessary. The reason you were summoned was, in fact, this missing-nin. The Kazekage had received reports that he was spotted in the River Country. Apparently he wanted to allow you the chance to make up for the mission that failed previously."

"Then, Hokage-sama, I should be a part of Shikamaru's mission."

"I don't think I can allow that," the Hokage said.

"May I ask why?"

The Hokage raised her eyebrows. "You don't know?"

_You question my loyalty. You don't trust me. No one in this village trusts me, except for Shikamaru. _

_And you're afraid I'll interrupt the mission to hump the captain._

(The grin the Hokage was giving her did little to contradict this idea.)

"I don't know," Temari said with a sigh, steeling herself for the inevitable. "Please tell me why."

"Because you're pregnant," the Hokage said.

o

The kunoichi didn't respond immediately, because this quite frankly made no sense. "No I'm not," she said with confidence.

"Mmm. What makes you so sure?" the Hokage asked with dancing eyes. "As I've heard it, you've been trying awfully hard."

"It's not possible," Temari said.

"When did you last check?"

Temari paused. When _had _she…?

"You're pregnant," the Hokage said with a sly grin, turning back to her paperwork.

"How on earth would you know?" Temari demanded, rather rudely – but she felt she had a right to be rude. 

The Hokage smiled. "I probably shouldn't tell you, since it would make me look wise and mysterious if I just knew," she said, "but you ran into Inuzuka Tsume on the street earlier today, and she told me when she was in my office half an hour ago. The Inuzukas can always tell. Your body starts to produce different hormones. It changes your scent."

Temari was dumbfounded. Was _that _why Kiba had been smirking at her? "You can't be serious," she said, crossing her arms.

"I am deadly serious. Go over to the hospital and take a test. At any rate, with that knowledge I can't allow you to take this mission. That's an ancient Konoha policy. You can get D-rank missions into your second trimester, if there's no danger of combat, but no A-rank missions, period. I don't know how they handle it over in the Sand," she said, "but assuming that your ninja reproduce as well, they have to have some kind of protocol."

The Hokage bent down to her paperwork again, seemingly oblivious to the young woman's presence, and silence filled the room. Temari felt out of place.

"I can't be pregnant," Temari said again, firmly.

"Why not?"

She opened her mouth, but closed it almost immediately. She didn't have a good answer or even a sly comeback for that.

Okay, technically, that time in the restaurant must have counted as sex, _but…_

In what twisted world did someone try to get pregnant for six months and then finally…

_On the bathroom sink? … Figures._

All the old fears were gone in a second. Replaced by all new ones.

_(Please don't let it get my hair… )_

She choked back a laugh. The Hokage raised an eyebrow at her with a look of either amusement or annoyance, but Temari couldn't stop herself. She let out one "Ha!", got herself back under control, and replaced her emotionless mask for the sake of the Hokage. This was quite the embarrassment. What was she going to say to her brother? Sorry to turn down your mission, Kazekage-sama. It seems I've been knocked up.

By the time she found Shizune's office, Shikamaru was already gone. "He just took off for the Aburame compound. You could probably catch him," the medic-nin told her.

Temari hesitated. She could tell him now, but that was a lot to put in someone's head right before a mission… So what was she going to do? She felt weird, out of place and deeply confused. And very strangely excited. She had to stand in the hallway a minute and focus on controlling her breathing. She reminded herself firmly that was no common woman, she was a kunoichi, and she wasn't going to lose her head entirely. She thought she should probably calm down and go over to the hospital.

Or she could find an empty training area and kill trees until this incredible pent-up energy was gone.

Or maybe she could go buy little shoes. She had a sudden craving to buy lots of tiny little shoes. And socks.

"What the hell is happening to me?" she asked herself out loud.

o

The missing-nin that had been responsible for several weeks' worth of missions from both Konoha and Suna was no competition against an annoyed Shikamaru, who wanted to finish this troublesome task and get back home before Temari had to return to Suna again. _Why _she hadn't been sent on this mission with the Konoha team was beyond even his brilliant mind. Still, they didn't really need her. He had a knack for flawless planning and deliberate, patient execution, and this particular target seemed to be ridiculously below any of them.

But honestly, he didn't do much. Once Shino had the missing-nin bug-tagged, they didn't have any trouble following him, and from that point on it was only a matter of catching up.

They returned to Konoha on the third day, prisoner in tow. Shikamaru went back to his apartment in a state of high agitation. Temari's travel pack was sitting in the corner, but Temari wasn't there.

It was only by chance that he ran into her. It was warm in Konoha, and she was sitting at one of the little outdoor tables at a tea house, idly chewing on some dango. She looked annoyed.

He knew from past experiences that it was better to figure out what she was going to yell at him about before she actually started yelling and cut her off at the pass. They were in a public place, after all. Was she somehow blaming him for not getting sent on the last mission? Was she still pissed at him for faking a coma? Or was it something else?

He sifted through the list of possibilities, but gave in as soon as they were close enough to talk. "What did I do?" he asked with a tone of resignation.

Just from the self-satisfied smirk she gave him, he knew before she even opened her mouth.

**o**


	8. Chapter 8

o

**o**

8

**o**

"Does this mean we have to stop having sex?" he asked.

She grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "Don't even joke about that."

**o**

He rolled over on the bed and stuffed his fingers into the sweaty yellow rat's nest that was what had become of her hair. It was always like this after they made love. Even when she made a point of trying to keep the hair ties in place, he always managed to pull them out while she was distracted.

"Leave my hair alone!" she shrieked.

"I hope the kid is blonde like you."

"You do not want my hair in your family," she said with certainty.

"Yes I do."

"Do you know why I wear it like this? Because there's no other way to wear it and keep it in place. Seriously."

"I told you before, I like it like that."

**o**

She wandered around his apartment retrieving clothing. They had been rather… impatient… the night before, but she wasn't technically supposed to be in Konoha at all and a small part of her mind was saying to get back home to Suna and enjoy it while she could, because her days living there were numbered. She'd visit. Probably for months at a time. But still.

"Why are you going back to Suna?" he grumbled.

"I don't know, idiot, I guess it must be because I live there." She always called him that, even though she knew he was a genius. It just came out of her mouth automatically. He never seemed to mind, though.

He caught her as she was escaping his bathroom and put a hand at her waist and leaned toward her ear carefully. "When are you coming back here to stay?"

She reddened like a little girl again. She didn't know how after all this time and everything they'd infamously done together he could still make her blush so easily. "Soon," she said. She gave him a warning glare after he let go, as he picked his Jounin vest off the couch in the living room, shook it out, and threw it around his shoulders. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Packing."

"You're coming with me?"

"I'm not stupid enough to let you go alone."

This initiated an argument about her being able to protect herself, which first led inevitably to sex, and finally to the understanding that he would come along just to make himself feel better if he really wanted to and she grudgingly allowed that she wouldn't stop him.

**o**

She stood before Gaara. "I've got news," she said, trying not to look too smug.

Gaara and Kankurou, as one, looked toward Shikamaru, who suddenly envied the goat he had seen getting picked by carrion in the desert on the way here, because at least that situation was taking place outside this room and far away from these men.

Temari barely noticed. She was staring at Gaara. "Don't you dare laugh. I will kill you if you laugh and I'm about _this close _already."

o

Kankurou turned to Gaara after they left. "I told you that was a bad idea."

Gaara only smiled.

o

She packed a few changes of clothes and a few pictures (all photos of her brothers and students and Suna, none of her parents). Anything else she wanted could be mailed. She was five months pregnant when she returned to Konoha for good, and since Shikamaru hadn't been able to get time off for it, Kankurou came with her for the journey. They didn't hurry. They walked the whole way, partly because she couldn't do any more than that, and partly because this would probably be their last chance to torment each other for a long time.

Shikamaru was out on a mission when she got there. Kankurou hung around for a couple of days, finally getting the message that Ino's free time was spoken for and not by him. Temari made fun of him for losing out to "the only ninja fatter than you." Finally she told him she was sick of him sexually harassing the Leaf kunoichi, and saying she was getting a bad reputation by association she kicked him out.

Shikamaru didn't come back for another week. It didn't surprise her. As Konoha's best battle tactician, he was much in demand, and she heard secondhand that he'd been saddled with another mission as soon as he got back from the first. She bought him groceries at the market and spent a couple evenings trying to cook, meeting with eventual moderate success, probably due to the fact that he wasn't around to distract her. She flipped through half his library and read a couple books. She got bored waiting around, but she wasn't sure how exactly she should go about explaining her extended presence to anyone else in Konoha.

Chouji surprised her one evening by showing up in Shikamaru's apartment. "Do you know when he'll be back?" she asked his friend.

"Any day now," he said. "It was a B-ranked mission, but more expensive than dangerous."

Almost bored out of her mind, she decided to put her recent experimentation to the test. She made Chouji wait at the table while she desperately tried to cook something edible. Chouji was left to idly wonder how in the world Shikamaru, the laziest ninja ever born, got someone like Temari to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Making him dinner.

Ino joined them not long afterward, glancing at Temari as if she expected the Sand nin to steal Chouji from her.

She made dinner with as few curses as she could manage.

Shikamaru arrived sometime later, when all three were eating.

He noted a lot of things. The way she was treating his friends. The bag of unsorted belongings she had left in the corner of his bedroom. The female underwear stuffed into his top drawer, which he came across after he showered. He drew some conclusions. It didn't take a genius.

After the other two had left, she commented, "Your teammates are fucking."

Shikamaru snorted. "Always so tactful…"

She swatted him playfully. "I didn't mean it in a bad way. _We _used to be just fucking, remember?"

Shikamaru lazily nuzzled her neck. "Yeah. I remember."

o

It was funny how it worked out. How people who had glared at her on the village street before suddenly smiled when they saw her. How the girl at Ichiraku Ramen gave her extra servings. How women she barely knew passed her charms that were supposed to make her have a son. (They didn't work.)

She suddenly wasn't the enemy anymore. A good fraction of the shinobi had known this for years, but finally the rest of the population was catching on.

Shikamaru got made fun of. Often. Especially by his father, but almost as much by his friends. He was the first of the Rookie Nine to start a family, so all the jokes that would become stale and unoriginal in a few years were getting broken in on him. There were so many dirty references to Shadow Possession jutsu that, happily for everyone, the joke soon became cliché.

o

After several months of holing up with Shikamaru and getting fatter, she decided she missed Suna. Not that she was ready to spring for the desert already, but she wanted to see her brothers. It wasn't that she enjoyed their company, exactly. That would be difficult. It was more that she hardly felt like herself without them.

She sat down by the window one day with a piece of parchment and wrote her brothers the following: _If one of you doesn't bring me the takeout fried chicken with the double spicy sauce from that restaurant just down the street from the Kazekage's tower I swear to god I will hunt down and kill you both. Love, Temari._

o

In her third trimester, Temari competed with Naruto to see who could eat more ramen. Spectators placed bets. Naruto won, naturally. But it was close.

o

In Konoha, it wasn't customary for men to be there in the room. What was customary was to take the father out drinking until he forgot what was going on.

His friends tried. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how one looked at the situation), they did not succeed: by the end of the night, between him, Chouji, Kiba, Ino, Sakura, and Naruto, Shikamaru was the only one who could still walk home in a straight line.

Except he didn't go home. He went to the hospital, the place he technically wasn't supposed to be, and slouched around in the waiting room feeling like a useless idiot and trying to keep still the millions of thoughts that were going through his mind. He knew Shizune and several nurses were with Temari, so she'd be well taken care of, and, for reasons he did not at first grasp, so was his own mother. "A mother should be there," Yoshino explained to him curtly at dinner several nights before. "And she doesn't have one of her own."

"You just want first dibs," his father Shikaku had accused under his breath.

Shikamaru remembered that she had thrown something at him.

Sitting in the hospital waiting room, still slightly buzzed from his friends' noble efforts, he leaned his head back against the wall and bit his lip. Not that he was nervous. Not that he was nervous in any way. Nervous would be unreasonable. He wasn't going to get worked up about it. Shizune was there. The Hokage was practically on standby. How could anything go wrong? He didn't know enough about obstetrics to make any estimates as to survival rate or general health… if he could get his hands on some statistics, maybe…

He was so distracted he didn't even notice when his mother walked up to him. She pulled him up out of his chair by his ear the way she used to when he was five and he wasn't paying attention to her lectures.

"Aaah! What did I do?"

" '_What did _ _I do,' _he asks. Go and see."

His mother led him down the hall and up a few flights of stairs and shoved him into the room and closed the door behind him before he had a chance to argue. Temari was standing by the window. Was she supposed to be standing? She wasn't supposed to get out of bed, was she? Was that even healthy? He was going to say something about it when she turned around and handed him something wrapped in blankets.

"Oh," he said, looking at the thing now in his arms.

"Yeah. Oh," she agreed.

He stared for a minute. "Is she supposed to be all wrinkly like that?"

Temari looked at him darkly.

"Right. Forget I said anything."

So all that trouble had led to this little person. Well, not _person_, exactly. Small and wrinkly little ball of red flesh, to be precise. But definitely a living, breathing, shaking-her-fists-at-him and squinting-her-eyes ball of red flesh. Every moment in his life and Temari's life had added up, in the end, after all variables were factored into the equation and all probabilities played their parts, after all the arguments, after one kiss from him and one hot look from her and two years of running back and forth pretending they weren't in love with each other and six months of aggravating effort, to this little person. What were the chances? He thought of all of this, and he thought of his sensei, who'd changed so suddenly when he first found out he was going to be a father, and Shikamaru finally understood why.

She was kind of cute, actually. Or she would be if she weren't so red.

"Shikamaru… oh no… don't tell me," Temari said, rolling her eyes. "Give me a break…"

"What?"

"Crybaby," she said, poking him in the side. "Tch. And you call yourself a ninja. You're setting a bad example for her."

He shrugged dumbly while Temari kissed a tear out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't help it.

o

She had her mother's eyes, and while it was entirely too early to tell whether her hair would be straight or not, it was definitely dark, which was good enough for Temari. They called her Chikako, in spite of the widely-held opinion that she should be named "Passport." By the time she was born, she was already an inside joke known to half the village. For some reason, the laughter didn't bother her parents.

In fact she was ten times as popular as either one of them. They never had to worry about finding a babysitter, anyway. Getting her back from Yoshino was practically an A-rank mission.

Chouji arm-wrestled her with a pinky.

Kurenai ran into them on the street while they were on their way back from the hospital and wouldn't let go of the baby for half an hour while she stood there giving them advice, much to the aggravation of her eight-year-old son, who looked like he was getting jealous.

When they came over to meet her, Ino and Sakura emitted high-pitched squeals for no less than five minutes straight and could not talk in adult language for several hours afterward.

(Ino was practically squirming for days. "I want one!" she had declared, which made Chouji look distinctly nervous.)

Naruto made faces at her and tried to explain in monosyllabic words how he was going to be the Hokage when she grew up, which turned out to require half of an afternoon.

When Gaara saw her for the first time, like Shikamaru, he cried. Temari could never remember this happening before, and never asked what he was thinking. Whatever it was stayed between him and Chikako.

Kankurou held her as though he thought he would break her. Temari stared at him with wide eyes and a rigid neck as if she shared this opinion.

Kankurou later approached her alone, looking like she hadn't seen him look in years. Or maybe ever. For half a minute he didn't look like her brother at all. "I never really believed any of us would have a normal kind of life," he explained.

She felt like a traitor all over again. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be sorry," he said. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm actually happy for you."

"Kankurou…"

"I am. You'll be a good mother."

They are never supposed to touch each other like family. Growing up, this was one of the unwritten rules of the household, along with _don't tease Gaara _and _never talk back to the Kazekage_. They are not supposed to be hugging like this, like two people who are related by blood, and she is sure that it's just the hormones making her cry because the Kazekage's daughter is a ninja who never shows emotion.

o

They were married as quietly as possible, and the only people there were shinobi. It was over in a few heartbeats, but the party afterwards was a different story. At sunrise the next morning people were still stumbling around the site of the festivities, spilling drinks.

They received gifts from every major family in the village.

"It worked," she noted, late the night of the wedding, before they had left the party but after the shinobi there had significantly drained the provided supply of warm sake. The two of them were sitting at a table lit by candlelight, the remnants of their wedding meal between them.

"Yes, I know."

"I'm not saying I doubted you, but I think it worked even better than you thought it would."

"I've noticed."

Sitting there, staring happily while his mother walked around through the inebriated crowd nearby, showing off their daughter shamelessly, Temari looked at his face and thought to herself, where have I seen that devious smirk before? "You didn't do this all just to embarrass me, did you?"

She watched his face carefully. The corner of his mouth curled up in a sheepish half-grin. "I have to admit that it's amusing to see you turn into a paranoid, over-affectionate, baby-talking psychopath."

Temari fumed. She didn't know whether she wanted to murder him or kiss him. For a hair's breadth of a moment it could have gone either way. No one but Temari knew how close that wedding came to ending in a spectacularly violent death. "You know what would wipe that look off your face? A good smack with several pounds of iron fan."

He shrugged again, but she didn't miss the slightly nervous look on his face. It appeased her.

She went to sit down again, aimed for her chair, but somehow ended up on his lap instead. She eyed him severely even while she was slipping her arm behind his neck. She had an image to maintain, damnit.

"What?" he asked with faux innocence.

She rolled her eyes, but it was too late to pretend that she was mad at him. She decided that it would be better for everybody, on the whole, if she kissed him instead of killing him. And she didn't regret it.

o

He came home late from a mission. They'd made him stop at the hospital for stitches on his arm, although he grumbled pointedly about it and glared at the nurses. He was too weary (or lazy) to eat. The weather was wet and miserable as he made his way home. By the time he walked in the door, the apartment was already quiet and dark, full of shadows and the sound of muffled rain. He had a feeling Temari was long asleep and there would be hell to pay if he woke her up. The kid was teething. He knew both of his girls must have lacked for sleep while he was gone.

He drank half a carton of milk, took half a shower, and bothered only to put on a loose pair of pants to sleep in (and only because she'd gone through the trouble of hanging them on the bathroom doorknob). He turned off the light and stumbled toward the bed.

He didn't need to look twice this time to know there was someone in it. That didn't surprise him. What surprised him was that she wasn't alone.

Temari opened her eyes to him. She was lying on her side, curled around the baby. "She was lonely," Temari said, by way of explanation.

He grinned at them. "Go back to sleep," he said.

She nestled her head into the pillow, sighed, and closed her eyes, arm securely wrapped around her daughter.

He crawled into the bed as carefully as if he were shadowing a target for a mission. Usually he slept on his back. Tonight he rolled onto his side and stared at the two of them. It was a while before he fell asleep, even though he was more than comfortable. Before he could close his eyes, he had the need to reach out and rest his hand on the soft little fuzzy head between them for a minute. He wondered when she would talk and walk. He wondered what she would say. He wondered who would teach her the shadow jutsu, whether it would be him or his father. He wondered what she would sound like when she started to get intelligent. And then he pulled the blanket over Temari's shoulder, since she was already asleep past the point of no return. He lay there and watched the two of them, thinking: _this is what all the trouble is about_.

He dozed off feeling their warmth on his chest and arms, listening to the sounds of soft breathing and rain beating on the window.

**o**

**Fin**

**o**


End file.
